Performance Evaluation of a Rice (Oryza sativa) Thresher

Abstract

A paddy thresher supplied to the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Bayero University, Kano Nigeria as part of its takeoff equipment for teaching and learning was evaluated to determine its performance indices in terms of threshing efficiency, cleaning efficiency, output capacity, mechanical damage and scatter loss. The variables used were two levels of moisture content (20% and 14%), two levels of speed (500 rpm and 700 rpm) and feed rate at two levels (100 kg/hr and 150 kg/hr). The factorial experiments were run in a complete randomized design in three replications. Two local Rice varieties Sipi (variety 1) and Jemila (variety2) were used. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and LSD were used to assess the effects of the independent variables on the performance indices of the paddy thresher. The mean values for cleaning efficiency, mechanical damage, scatter loss and output capacity ranges from 59.28 – 87.82%, 0.02 - 0.23%, 0.02 - 0.05% and 25.26 - 58.82 kg/h respectively. ANOVA results showed that moisture content, feed rate and speed significantly affected cleaning efficiency, mechanical damage and the output capacity at 5% probability for the two paddy varieties. Keywords— Efficiency, output capacity, performance, rice, threshing machine.