Development and Performance Evaluation of an Improved Soybean Thresher

Author: Amadu Nomau

Reference: https://www.scribd.com/document/289142395/Development-and-Performance-
Evaluation-of-an-Improved-Soybean-Thresher

ABSTRACT
Due to the bulky nature of thesoybean andsince it has to be harvested with the stems, the
conventional threshers for maize and guineacorn cannot be used for the cropwithout modifications.
An improved soybean thresher has been developed and its performance evaluation has also been
carried out. From the results, threshing efficiency,cleaning efficiency, mechanical grain damage,
scatter loss and throughput capacity of 99%, 95%, 1.01%, 2.7% and 25.5kg/hrwere
obtainedrespectively. Also from the ANOVA statistical analysis carried out, it shows that all the
in-dependable variables i.e. feed rate, moisture content and speed havea significant effectson the
dependable variables i.e. Threshing efficiency, cleaning efficiency, scatter loss, mechanical grain
damage and throughput capacity.A comparison betweenthe performance of the improved
soybeanthresher and the old IARsoybeanthresher was carried out and it reveals that the difference
between the cleaning efficiency of the new thresher andthat of the old thresher issignificant at
1%probabilitylevel. It also shows that the difference in the threshing efficiency of the new thresher
with the old one is significant at 5%probabilitylevel.This means that there is an improvement in
the performance of the old I.A.R soybean thresher by the improved one.

Summary
This study aims to develop and improved the performance of the previously made soybean
threshers through modifying the threshing drum, the fan blades of the blower and the size of the
hopper. They constructed an enlarged feed hopper which is bigger than the IAR soybean thresher.
This hopper is made from gauge 18 mild steel metal sheet which forms the feeding chute that feeds
the soybean plant into the threshing unit. The threshing unit was made up of cylinder, beaters and
a perforated concave plate. It consists of a four-blade fan which serves as the blower unit that
provides air current that helps in separating the grain from the chaff. The thresher is powered by a
diesel engine which has a transmission unit consisting of thresher pulley, a fan pulley and a shaker
pulley. After this machine was tested, they found out that threshing efficiency increased with a
decrease in feed rate and moisture content at a higher speed. Cleaning efficiency was observed to
increase at a decreasing feed rate and moisture content with an increase in the cylinder
speed.Mechanical (visible) grain damage increased with an increase in cylinder speed and feed
rate but at lower moisture content. Scatter loss increased with an increase in cylinder speed and
feed rate at lower moisture content.The highest lost was recorded at a cylinder speed of 700
rpm.Throughput capacity also increased with an increase in cylinder speed and feed rate at lower
moisture content.