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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the physical and mechanical characteristics of the roasted cashew nut during fracture, by subjecting the nut to varying impact load tests at different orientations to ascertain the critical impact load that fractures the shell without damaging the kernel within. This load value was correlated with other parameters; shell/kernel moisture content level, average nut mass, to determine the required projection velocity to achieve this force. This projection velocity is the critical factor in sizing and design of the optimum configurations of the shelling impeller. Design/methodology/approach -Mechanical properties of roasted cashew nut were first determined to know their fracture points. Each component of the shelling machine was designed. The components were assembled and the machine was tested for performance. Findings -Machine throughput capacity was determined as 15.57 kg/h; shelling efficiency was 95 per cent; and whole kernel recovery was 70 per cent. Practical implications -The efficiency in terms of whole kernel recovery could be improved by improving the pretreatment measures on the nuts. Originality/value -The paper presents a machine which is affordable to peasant farmers and requires little or no training for operation and maintenance. The advantage of reduced unit cost can be derived from large-scale commercial production of this sheller.

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Condition monitoring for helicopters has always been one of the most critical technologies to guarantee the integrity of the rotorcrafts, enhance operational and personnel safety, and reduce the overall maintenance costs. Over the past decades, health and usage monitoring system (HUMS) has been developed and implemented in helicopters to monitor the health status for the main gearbox (MGB) and other key components of the transmission system, improving condition-based maintenance for helicopters. However, many studies have indicated that current HUMS has a limited sensitivity to MGB planetary bearing defects. To enhance HUMS' performance, this paper presents an approach based on frequency domain analysis techniques to diagnose planetary bearing defects using real helicopter data collected from a CH-46E helicopter aft MGB. Vibration data was processed using signal processing techniques including self-adaptive noise cancellation (SANC), discrete-random separation (DRS), cepstrum editing, kurtogram, envelope analysis and iterative envelope cancellation. Processing results conclude that frequency domain analysis techniques can provide distinct and intuitive indications of the seeded defects at both the inner race and the outer race of the faulty planetary bearing.