Design and Development of a Pneumatic Harvesting Tool for Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.)

Abstract

The pneumatic harvesting tool for oil palm harvesting were tested and developed. The experiment was carried out at Khao Saming district, Trat  province in July 2009 with 5 steps of testing namely tool design, primary test, first improvement, secondary test, second improvement and tertitary test, After being designed the tests had been made and developed until the fifth step. The result of final step showed that pneumatic harvesting tool was able to harvest both leaves and bunches of oil palm that were greatly easier than the traditional tool. This tool was designed by using air pressure that made from engine pass compressor, direction control valve, throttle valve, pressure control valve, line connection to chisel instead of human force. Pneumatic harvesting tool had been able to work with 3 chisels together. The average field capacity was 8.17+_0.21 second per fresh fruit bunch or the average production was 12.282+_0.25 kg per minute.