Development of a Vertical Mashing Machine and Specifying its Main Parameters

Abstract

The paper proves the necessity to create new modernized types of fruit and vegetable processing machines. The paper highlights the importance of such machinery versatility, since each individual type of fruit and vegetable has its own physical characteristics, such as solidity, viscosity, moisture content, fibers, seeds, and grains. (Research purpose) To study the zucchini mashing process performed by the developed vertical mashing unit. (Materials and methods) An improved mashing machine design is proposed: a vertical plant with a conical auger inside and a sieve drum. (Results and discussion) Based on the calculations, the following parameters are specified: the body wall thickness, the cell diameter, the cone and conical auger parameters, as well as the machine operating modes. The sieve drum height is set at 0.8 meters, the diameter is 0.4 meters, the distance between the cone top and the drum is 0.15 meters. A conical auger is made for four working turns. (Conclusions) The minimum number of zucchini seeds (100 pieces) is specified for the subsequent selection of the drum cell diameter. The criteria and delimitations for high-quality zucchini mashing were identified. The diameter of the vertical masher cells was set within the range from 0.0071 to 0.0093 meters.