Design of Breadfruit Shelling Machine

Abstract

Breadfruit (Treculia Africana) or simply breadnut is very important both as food and as a potential source of oil. The economic importance of this tropical seed on domestic and commercial basis has necessitated the design of a mechanized shelling method. This would reduce the tedium of the traditional manual shelling methods which though are quite efficient, are rather time-consuming. In the engineering design of this machine, the action zone consisted essentially of two rollers; one adjustable and the other rotating. A separating unit that cleans the seed while pneumatically separating it from the shell was incorporated. The design of this separating unit was such that practically 80% cleaning was achieved at an averageair flow rate of 740m3/hr. Overall, the efficiency of the machine was about 78%. African Research Review Vol. 2 (4) 2008: pp. 1-16