School of mechanical and industrial

Engineering

Designing OF solar powered maize thresher machine

By:-
1. Andom tsige eitm/ur119103/09
2. Danil weiday eitm/ur118900/09
3. Hailay misgna eitm/ur118950/09

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in the University
of Mekelle
 Introduction to Threshing Machine
For thousands of years maize was separated by hand and was very laborious and time consuming. The term
threshing can be defined as the process of detaching grains from the heads or from the plants. Threshing
separates grains from panicles, cops and pods. Threshing or detaching the kernels from the ears or pods is
accomplished by combination of impact and rubbing action. While the conventional tangential threshing unit
threshes mostly by impact other threshing devices like rotary threshing units act more by rubbing.
In our country the mechanics introduced are not concern the individual land owners need that is small
threshing machineries are not introduced yet.
A Threshing is on the principle that when;
• Some input or pounding is given on crops the grains is separate from panicles, cops and pods.
• The crop mass passes through a gap between drum and concave wearing or rubbing action takes place this
separates grain form panicles.
 Statement of the Problem
Due to the dynamic advancement of the globe everything that is going to perform becomes
easy form time to time. All the obstacles hindered the life style of human being are solved in
case of feasible and amazing alternatives. Most developing countries like Ethiopia are
economically dependent on agriculture; still then the mechanism of this field was very
backward system. And this sector considers the ploughing, planting, seeding, harvesting and
the final threshing. Traditional shelling methods do not support large scale shelling of maize,
especially for commercial purposes. Due to this reasons the manual mechanism with the
following limitations was the only choice:
• It is tedious and time consuming
• It requires too many labor force/ man power
• Its productivity is less Indeed putting the harvest in a cleaned place and moving animals
round and round is the most common way of threshing crops in the country. This
mechanization could not give comfort rather pains due to the repetitive and long timed
hard working.
 Significance of the Study

The following are some of the significance of the study.

To reduce the problem cultural harvesting methods in our country
To improve the living standard of society by using modern corn trashing
methods
It used to increase the ability of investigating problem in similar for project
To reduce the cost man power using traditional maize trashing methods
Objectives of the Study
General Objective
The general objective of this project is to design solar powered maize Sheller/threshing
machine.
Specific Objective
To meet the general objectives of the study the project is intended to achieve the following
specific objectives.
• To identifies working principles of maize trashing machine
• To identifies the advantages and disadvantages of modern maize trashing machines.
• To study the participation (use age) of the society in the modern maize trashing
machines
• To develop and describe this maize trashing machine for the society on the market to
introduce, modern maize trashing machines with their relative advantages.
• To design and draw the components and assembly using software of a machine
• To able produce 11580kg/day
Scope of the Project
The scope of this project is to design solar powered maize threshing machine
which solve the problem of that detaching of the maize or grains from its cobs
in rural and urban area of our country also saves electric bills, time consumes
and energy/man power .This project is starts with literature review and
conceptual design, design specification in order to satisfy the project
objective. The design includes material selection, working principle,
dimension analysis, power and force requirement for threshing of the maize,
part design, component selection, cost analysis and modeling of each parts by
using 3D cad design
 Methodology
The methods employed to achieve the objectives of the thesis are,

 Many literature review of journals, Wikipedia and etc

 Attend our advisors guidance and correction
 Develop conceptual design in order to select the best alternative
 Design each components or select the components based on the requirement and
 Elaborate the working principle of the machine
 express the components by CAD including the assembled drawing.
 Result and discussion
 conclusion
Literature Review
Maize shelling is a post-harvest operation that is the removal of maize seeds from the cob.
This operation can be carried out in the field or at the storage environment. Maize shelling is
an important step towards the processing of maize to its various finished products like flour.
The different methods of maize shelling can be categorized based on various mechanization
technology used. These includes:

Depending on the influence of agronomic, economic and social factors threshing or shelling
is done in different ways.
• Threshing or shelling by hand, with simple tools.
• Mechanical threshing or shelling, with simple machines operated manually.
• Mechanical threshing or shelling with motorized equipment.
• Different components of a combine harvester
Conceptual and Detailed Design Analysis
In the design of Maize trashing machine out of the possible alternatives three of them will be
analyzed here just to show the methods.
1. Manual pedal operated maize trashing machine
2. Solar/electrical powered maize trashing machine
3. Combined harvesting maize trashing machine

We label them as Design 1, Design 2, Design 3.

In order to select one type of maize trashing machine we compare for the following three
different types of trashing machine according their selection criteria’s
Basic Selection Criteria
The basic selection criteria for the design of the whole systems are as follow
1. Ease of handling
2. Ease of use
3. Ease of mountable
4. Durability
5. Ease of manufacture
6. Portability
7. Ease of maintenance
8. Low wear and friction on the moving parts
9. Low susceptibility of vibration
10. Few disturbing factors
11. Small number of components
12. Low complexity of components
13. Many standards and bought out parts
14. Simple assembly
15. Low cost including maintenance cost
Evaluating different alternatives
In order to make any kind of evaluation, it is necessary to have a set of criteria and these must be
Based on the design objectives i.e. what it is that design is meant to achieve. The objective will include technical and economic
factors, user requirements and so on. Hence the following objectives are chosen to evaluate the design characteristic of each
feature.
I. Cost,
II. total life time,
III. Manufacturability
IV. Maintainability,
V. Power consumption from this by considering the overall selection criteria we can select one machine according the following
selection criteria
Evaluation criteria Wight% Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3

Cost 20% 17% 15% 10%

Manufacturability 15% 08% 13% 06%

Maintainability 15% 06% 14% 13%

Consumption 20% 16% 14% 14%

Total life time 20% 11% 13% 11%

Total 56% 69% 54%

From this we can select a concept 2/ solar powered maize threshing machine which works
through a belt drive according the above over all evaluation criteria
 Geometric Analysis
Required parameters and assumptions taken for this project:

 Overall machine dimension (l x w x h) 1200mm x 800mm x 1500mm, by considering of the cost of the machine.
 Shaft of at least 950mm in length by considering the length of the machine and the components that hinged or fixed on it.
Hopper of Overall Height 500mm inlet allowance of 500mm by 50mm by considering the portability in operation time

Design Consideration
The considerations that are taking in account for designing the machine are:

a) Crop factors, profile (shape, size, and length) and moisture content,
b) Mechanical properties like reliability, rigidity, bend ability, weld-ability, buckling, wear corrosion, lubrication system
vibration and stability.
c) The machine will be manufactured from locally available materials. To insure that maintainability is secure, assembling and
disassembling process must not complex and easy operation process.
Design Specification

Selection of motor: A 1 Hp single phase induction motor was used to drive the corn threshing machine. Induction motor was
chosen for the reason that it is maintenance free motors due to absence of slip rings and brushes unlike synchronous motors

Solar panel sizing: To calculate the rating of solar panels needed by the system, the total load demand was computed by
determining the number of individual loads multiplied by its usage time.

AC Motor = 1 hp = 746 W ,N =1740 rpm

The computed total load of 746Wh was used to compute the power needed from the pane To compute for the total power needed
per day which must be provided by the panels, multiply it by 1.3 which is the energy lost in the system. Power needed from panel
= Total load x 1.3 Power needed from panel = 746 Wh x 1.3 Power needed from panel = 969.8 W Divide the total power
generated per day from the solar panels by 4.7675 which is the panel generation factor of the solar panel if it is located in
Butangas and the solar panels face directly south, to get the total Watt-peak rating needed for the PV panels needed to operate the
machine. Size of the panel = Size of the panel = Size of the panel = 203.4189 W Size of the panel = 300 W
Inverter sizing. To calculate the rating of the inverter, it must have the same nominal voltage as your battery. For stand-alone
systems, the inverter must be large enough to handle the total amount of watts to be used. The inverter size should be 25-30
percent bigger than total watts of the equipment. Size of the inverter = 746 W (1.25) (2) Size of the inverter = 1865 W Size of the
inverter = 2.5 kW
Battery sizing. The battery type recommended for use in solar PV system is deep cycle battery.
We used 2 x 150 Ah deep cycle batteries for the system because these are designed for solar applications and the rating should be
more than the computed rating

Solar charge controller sizing. Once you have sized your battery bank and solar panel array, determining which charge controller
to use is comparatively straight forward. Find the current through the controller by using Power = Voltage x Current. Take the
power rating of the solar panels and divide by the voltage of the batteries. Then multiply by the safety factor of 1.25. Size of the
charge controller = Size of the charge controller = Size of the charge controller = 31.25 A the researchers used 40 Ampere rating
of charge controller.
Design of Hopper
The hopper is design to be fed in a horizontal position .The materials used for the construction is mild steel sheet metal which is
readily available in the market and relatively affordable. The hopper has the shape of upper and lower rectangular
Assumed that the dimension of the hopper by the following consideration.
 Safe in operation.
 Safe holding capacity of maize.
The volume of the hopper is calculated V =O.2178 m^3
Selection of Flywheel
A fly wheel used in machines serves as a reservoir which stores energy during the period supply is more than the requirement and
releases it during requirement of energy is more than supply. One of the biggest issues with regard to flywheels is balancing.
The material for the fly wheel is cast iron of density 7800 kg/m3 because of cast iron have the following properties.
The dimensions and weight of are determined Do=mean or outer diameter of the fly wheel
Di=25mm +2mm=27mm and Do=200mm.
t=7.67 say 10mm
b=2t, Wf=10*9.81=98.1N
Design of Pulley
The pulley are used to transmit power from one shaft to another by means of flat belt ,v belt, ropes, the velocity ratio is the inverse
ratio of the diameter of driving and drive pulley , Therefore the pulley diameter should be carefully selected in order to have
designed velocity.

the diameter of the pulley will be obtained from velocity ratio considerations or centrifugal stress induced in the rim of the pulley
V1= 68.32 m/s
From the standard pulley diameter D2=180mm is appropriate diameter of pulley
Design of Threshing Unit
The threshing unit for this design consists of the threshing disc (drum) and the threshing bar or concave. The discs are connected
facing each other and rotate as a block and their surface is to be grooved and rasp bars so as to provide a rough contact on the
maize cob against the spiked rigid metallic surface .Hence this forced friction results to the threshing of maize kernels from the
cob. Below the threshing unit a collector and spot metallic member is to be fitted and is designed to incline towards its central
longitudinal axis where an opening is allowed for grain collection as the cobs pass over the member surface towards the exit
where they are collected below the machine
The diameter of threshing teeth So by considering the above maize sizes the diameter of threshing wire is D=5 mm
The diameter of threshing teeth So by considering the above maize sizes the diameter of threshing wire is
Determination of length of threshing wire, Dt=400 mm for large scale of operation system L=diameter of threshing disc-diameter
of shaft/2
L=400-mm-25mm/2=187.5mm
The threshing disc also contains a number of wires teeth arranged by considering the dimension of the maize. So it is the best that
the wire is arranged with a 5mm gap
Shaft Design
The shafts which supports the threshing drum and transmit power to it is a back bone having multiple purpose .It also transmit
power to the clearance system that is to the fan and cylinder crank brush through belt and to the sieve through its cam by pushing
the push during cycling motion
This shaft is subjected to bending stress due to the drum load and the tension or reaction at both end, further it is subjected to shear
due to the transmission of torque or torsion load .The load of the shaft itself is also taken in consideration for the bending stress
evaluation .so that shaft is subjected to combined twisting and bending load.

The material selected is carbon steel 40c8 and with yield strength of 320Mpa and σu=5609 Mpa
Design of Mainframe
The metal frames used are angle iron bars. The material used for the frame is mild Steel. It has carbon ranging from 0.10-0.20%,
Tensile strength is 420 N/mm2. The frame is used as the main structure, which supports the magnetic assembly. It also supports
the collector and the shaft having pulley, fly wheel and threshing disc.

Selection of Bearing
A bearing is a machine element which supports another moving machine element (known as journal). It permits a relative motion
between the contact surfaces of the members, while carrying the load. To select the bearing for this design that is considered the
diameter of shaft.

Selection of Belt Drive

The belt is used to transmit power from one shaft to another or one pulley to another pulley by means of pulleys which rotates at
the same speed or at different speed.

The material used for flat belt is leather

Analysis and Selection of Fan
A fan consisting of a rotating impeller, blade and energy transfer in to the grain and straw or dust mixture fall dawn perpendicular
to the axis of fan shaft. The feed into the grain trough the un- wanted particles called forced draft.
Design of Collector
A collector or a spot is made with available material within the environment like sheet metal by Welding process. The main
purpose of this collector is to collect all the grains that deliver in to Collector chamber and out with a small hole for safe operation.

Design of Wheel
The wheel is used in this design project to move all the body of the machine one place to another Place .

Production analysis of the Machine

Depending on source from experience of maize threshing machine operated manually to thresh 100kg it takes 1 hour. And
the volume of the hoper is,
V=0.2178m3
So the machine can be thresh in one cycle, and we calculate the mass of the maize which threshed in one cycle is,
m=v*ρ , where ρ =density of the maize which is ρ =886.478kg/m3
m =0.2178m3*886.478
=193kg
Then, 100kg=1 hour
193kg = x
100kg*x=193*1hour, therefore X=1.93 hour
And we have speed of, manual operated machine is, N=60rpm,
Speed of motor operated machine is, N=1740rpm
So we have a relation, Nmotor/Nmanual =Tmannual/Tmotor, where T is time
Tmotor=60rpm*1.93hour/1740rpm
Tmotor=0.0666hour or 3.99minit approximately 4minut
Which means the machine takes 4minut to complete one cycle.
And our machine works 8 hour per a day and 120 cycles,
Now we have to calculate total mass of a machine threshes per a day.
So, 120*193kg=23160kg
But this amount is the combination of the pure maize and the cobs. And we have to find the pure maize.so from testing
experience the net output of the pure maize is half of the total.
Mtotal=23160kg/day
Mnet=11580kg/day
Working Principle of Machine
Simply we can explain the working mechanism of the trashing machine as follow. It is known that there is an input power for the
system in which the motor shaft is connected with the shaft of the drum through a belt and pulley system. For this case the power
will be transmitted to the drum in order to rotate the drum. Now we know that in the outer part of the drum there are a lot of
structural trashing elements which are welded in a structural curve to the end point of the drum according the given drawing
through welding system. Then the drum by itself is inserted inside the cylindrical shape tube according the drawing as we see.
Then as we enter a maize which is not trashed through the inlet tube then the rotation of the drum resulted for the trashing of the
maize due to the relative contact of the structural trashing element of the drum and the maize. In this case the west product will be
removed through the outlet tube.
And the final output or end product will also move or slide through the sliding plate and then it will be collected as shown in the
fig below.
 Cost Estimation

No Name of component Quantity Unit cost in (birr)

1 Frame 2 1086.00

2 Drum 1 500

3 Concave 1 500

4 Shafts 400

5 Sieve 1 80

6 Push rod 1 100

7 Bearing 4 347

8 Pulley 5 1600

9 Key 5 50
10 Belt 3 300
11 Fan 1 1500
12 Wheal 2 1000
13 Rechargeable battery 2 5000
14 Charge controller 1 3000
15 Solar panel 1 10000
16 Manufacturing cost 5000
17 Others 3000
Total 41463
 DISCUSSION
The values set in the above basic parameters which are used to assemble the machine and to manufacture it. The solar powered
machine is safe to thresh the maize, since it requires less power than this input power. The component dimensions are expressed
based on the values that we got from the calculation and from standard specification of elements from tables, the speed rate fan is
safe because it is selected based on the mass, density of the maize and corn.

Conclusions
From this work we conclude that the threshing capacity, efficiency and cleanness in terms of cracking are fully depends on the threshing drum speed, power,
clearance between the tooth themselves and between the tooth’s and concave clearance, clearance between the forks of slider crank brush, sieve hole and fan
streaming pressure. The moisture content of the crop hopper volume and hopper inclination is also among the factors that affect the thresh ability and
producing well cleaned grain.
From the point of view of cleaning crop which it is easy and simple in components which supplies well cleaned maize than that of all cleaning systems
expressed in the literature review section is best. And finally the rest dust particle, some small or micro straw are blown by fan without affecting the grains.