Performance Evaluation of a Mechanism for Green Onion Handling

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to design and evaluation performance of mechanism for green onion crop handling, as well as, improving the crop quality based on the suggested handling system. However, the suggested handling system consists of feeding unit, trimming unit which based on rotary cutting mechanism, antioxidant unit and tying unit. The following technical parameters had been considered to evaluate the suggesting mechanism: feeding belt speed, feeding rate, cutting disc speed, tying position of onion bundle relative to the cutting disc, angle of cutting disc and discharge rate of ascorbic acid. However, the following technical indicators had been estimated such as machine productivity, trimming efficiency, cutting offset angle of plants, the quality of the final product and the costs of green onion produced by mechanism system. Results indicated that the machine productivity was found to be 316.2 kg/h, handling system efficiency was 75.89 %, the trimming efficiency was 89.15 %, cutting offset angle of plants was 22º, at 12.5 cm/s feeding-belt speed and when 5.6 kg/min feeding rate. With operated at 5.11 m/s cutting disc speed, the optimum tying position during trimming process is 7.5 cm, the wilting coefficient was (0.09 mm/day) at discharge rate of 5 l/h and handling machine reduced the cost of green onion trimming to 1: 2.67 as compared with manual method.