Design and fabrication of a simple pedal operated cassava grater suitable for rural dwellers

Abstract

Food crop in Nigeria is mainly produced by farmers in the rural areas where petrol/diesel for operating engine, electricity and machines for processing agricultural produce are lacking and this usually result to loss of agricultural produce on the farm before and after harvesting. This study was embarked upon to develop a simple pedal operated cassava grater for rural dwellers. The cassava grater was fabricated using locally available materials mainly hardwood for constructing the frame, grating chamber (hopper), grating roller and the outlet. Iron rod of 20 mm in diameter (mild steel) for the shaft, three roller bearings, driven and driver pulleys, belt, bicycle pedal and galvanized sheet (2 mm in thickness) for the grating surface on the grating roller. The frame of the cassava grater was 540 mm wide, 1200 mm long and 1050 mm high and the grater is portable. The grating chamber was 420 by 440 mm at the top where the cassava is fed into the grater and 220 by 440 mm at the bottom inside which the grating roller (190 mm diameter and 300 mm long) grate the cassava into granules. The grating efficiency and capacity of the grater were 90.91% and103.7 kg/h, respectively. The cassava grater could be used for grating cassava tubers in rural areas where electricity and petrol are lacking.Keywords: cassava grater, cassava processing, shaft design, belt transmission