Design, development and performance evaluation of a motorized periwinkle meat extraction machine

Abstract

Efficient cracking and separation of periwinkle shells are essential unit operations in periwinkle meat processing. Mechanization remains the panacea to achieving timely processing of periwinkle meat. This study was carried out to design, develop and evaluate the performance of a viable machine for the extraction of meat from periwinkle. The performance of the machine was dependent on certain processing parameters, such as cracking speed (CS), Agitating speed (AS), feed rate (FR) and heat conditioning time (HCT), while periwinkle cracking efficiency (CE), separating efficiency (SE), Throughput capacity (TP) and periwinkle meat loss (PML) were the responses. The maximum periwinkle meat CE of 84.05 % was obtained at CS of 130 rpm, FR of 0.2 kgs-1 and HCT of 6 min. The result for SE indicated that most efficient periwinkle meat separation of 78.79% can be achieved when HCT, CS, AS and FR set at 6 min,130 rpm,1.11m/s and 0.40 kg/s respectively. Highest TP value of 26.79 kg/h was obtained when the machine was operated at CS of 130 rpm, AS of 1.23 m/s under the HCT of 6 min at FR of 0.40 kg/s. Also, the lowest PML value of 10.71 % was obtained when the machine was operated at CS of 120 rpm, AS of 1.04 m/s under the HCT of 4 min at feed rate of 0.30 kg/s. These machine parameters have significant effects on the periwinkle meat processing. The study has provided a viable option to replace the time-consuming crude manual method of periwinkle meat postharvest processing.