Design and Fabrication of Semi Automatic Coconut Copra Electric Dryer

Abstract

In India Coconut is the major plantation crop in the states of Tamilnadu, kerala, Karnataka, Kongan region of Maharastra and Andaman and Nicobar Islands for entire seasons. Copra is the major product from the coconut cultivation earning higher income of small and medium livelihoods. The approval of copra quality is mainly based on how well the copra got dried. Open drying or other conventional methods is the major process of making copra. In adverse weather condition, rainy season the drying process will be very challenging. Many dryers are made and used currently was affordable to medium and large scale copra producers. Those dryers also having limitations in size, high initial cost and nature dependency. There is very few attempt made for Small and individual household copra producers. This paper mainly focuses on how to dry-up the copra in all climate conditions. An electric handy dryer is designed to dry up the coconut copra and other grains. It mainly helps the small scale farmers as a handy dryer unit to dry-up the copra, those who are using coconut as a way of income. Based on the experiments conducted the electric dryer removed high moisture content than forced convection and direct sun dryers.