Design and development of compact Foxtail millet deshelling machine

Abstract

Abstract Millets are cereal crops that fall under the category of small seeded grasses. Millets are the basic cereals in India and eaten by a majority of the rural community, and constitute around 25 percent of the total food grain production in India. Millets are among the most nutritious food grains available in India and are rich source of vitamins, minerals, calcium, fiber and also has low glycemic index. Millets contain a dry external cover called husk/ shell. Removal of the husk is called De-husking/ De-shelling. Manually Deshelling is quite difficult and also requires lot of human effort and there will be damage to the seeds. To overcome these difficulties, machines have been developed. However, the existing/conventional machines have the drawbacks such as larger in size and capital intensive. The maximum number of farmers involved in millet cultivation are small land holding farmers producing millets in small quantity and the existing machines are not suitable for small quantity processing. Hence an attempt is made to overcome the difficulties of small farmers, by developing a small machine suitable for multiple millets. The specification developed included important parameters like Method of Deshelling, type of deshelling, weight of Millets for each batch, diameter of abrasive disc, motor power, distance between the abrasive discs, total weight of the system, operating speed. Different product concepts were developed to meet the developed specifications and the most suitable one was selected. The selected concept consisted of different subsystems like the deshelling mechanism, power system and frame. All these subsystems were synthesized and designed successfully to meet the requirements. The complete fabrication of all the subsystems and final assembly was carried out. The developed compact foxtail millet deshelling machine has been tested for its working and found to be satisfactory.