Constructing and Evaluation of Prototype Shelling Machine for Sugar Cane Leaves

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to construct and evaluate sugar cane shelling machine to be used in sugar cane juice shops. Shelling machine was fabricated on a private workshop in Dosuq city and experiments were carried out at Sakha Agriclture Research Center during summer season 2008 to state the effect of stalk moisture content, feeding and shelling speeds on shelling performance (shelling efficiency, machine productivity, specific energy and shelling cost).Some physical and mechanical properties for sugar cane stalk variety Giza 54-9 were also measured. The obtained data helped in designing and manufacturing the proposed shelling machine.Results showed that, the optimum operating conditions of the proposed prototype was at feeding speed of 500 r.p.m, shelling speed of 1200 r.p.m and stalk moisture content of 61.73%. Whereas it gave shelling efficiency of about 76.14% specific energy of 1.625 kW.h/ton and acceptable machine productivity of 0.670 ton/h. Also the cost calculations indicated that the manual shelling of sugar cane is about 4.51 times of mechanical shelling.