Fabrication and Performance Evaluation of a Thevetia Nut Cracking Machine

Abstract

Thevetia seed contains about 64 percent of non-edible oil in its oily kernel and this oil can be used for various purposes such as biofuel and bio-oil; making of paints, insecticides, cosmetics, lubricants and cooling oil in electrical transformers. The cakes obtained after oil extraction are incorporated on the field as manure. In order to get quality oil kernels from the hard nuts, there is need to properly crack them; this process of cracking is still a great challenge. As result of the aforementioned problem, this work focused on the design, fabrication and performance evaluation of a thevetia nut cracking machine. The machine works based on the principle of attrition force. Some of the parts designed for were diameter of shaft (13 mm solid shaft) and length of belt (A55), power required to operate the machine (2.5 hp), speed of operation (9.14 m/s) and the appropriate dimension of angle iron bar of 45 mm × 45 mm × 3 mm was used for the structural support. The fabrication was done systematically followed by the performance evaluation of the machine. The result of the overall cracking efficiency and throughput capacity of the machine were evaluated to be 96.65 % and 510 g⁄min respectively.KEYWORDS: thevetia nut, thevetia kernel, design, attrition, overall cracking efficiency