การพัฒนาและประเมินประสิทธิภาพของเครื่องกะเทาะเปลือกถั่วลิสง

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to develop and efficiency assessment of groundnut sheller machine. The purpose of this research was to raise production of peanuts to higher performance and safe work-times due to the shortage of labor in the agricultural sector. The components of groundnut sheller machine, cracked rubber wheel set, hopper, cleaning fan, sorting sieve. The performance of sheller was tested used to crack peanuts of ‘Thainan 9’ variety with a 1 hp electric motor. The rotational speeds of the motor were set to 170, 200, 230, and 260 rpm; the gap between the rubber wheel surface and the grater metal plate was set to various lengths: 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, and 2.0 cm. It was found that the optimal parameters were the following: a motor rotational speed of 260 rpm and a gap of 1.8 cm between the rubber wheel and the grater metal plate. Those parameters provided 96.10% perfectly cracked peanuts and a peanut shell cracking capacity of 332 kgh^-1. An engineering economic analysis showed that, for an operation of 300 days a year and 8 hours a day, the break-even period was 8 days and the break-even point was 2,480 kg year^-1. These findings may benefit peanut farmers in their quest for a higher production capacity with less manual labor.