Design and fabrication of prototype telescopic raising platform for harvesting oil palm fresh fruit bunches

Abstract

Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop because of its unparalleled productivity. Harvesting plays an important role in the oil palm productivity, yield and cost economics. But the harvesting of oil palm has become difficult due to gradual cutbacks in labour availability. Hence an attempt has been made to design and fabricate a prototype telescopic raising platform for harvesting oil palm fresh fruit bunches at college of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla, India. The design details of the prototype are described in detail in the paper. Telescopic lifting mechanism, sliding mechanism and rope drive mechanisms were designed to lift and take the platform near fresh fruit bunches at crown of the tree. The diameter and speeds of the first, second and third cylinders were 12.065 cm, 9.525 cm, 7.000 cm and 0.0779 m/s, 0.0421 m/s, 0.02624 m/s respectively. The minimum deflection of the sliding mechanism was 2.81 cm and rope drive needs 0.08 hp to operate, which is less than the power availability. All the designed mechanisms worked well at the prototype, fabrication of the machine at actual scales will be a good approach towards the mechanization of the oil palm.