Mechanical design and evaluations of new corn peeler design produced via three-dimensional printing technique

Abstract

Traditionally, the corns are commonly peeled using knife or any other cutting tools to extract the kernels from the cob before the next processes taken place. However, most of those conventional methods are time-consuming, highly risked to injury as well as resulting in less output. Thus, a new method of corn peeling is necessary to obtain a more convenient and safe cutting technique in order to eliminate the existing drawbacks. A series of idea generation and concept development stages was hence undertaken to develop a new design of corn peeler. Then, the finalized concept was interpreted as a three-dimensional (3-D) model comprising three main parts namely body, handle, and container, in which designed using a computer-aided design (CAD) software. The CAD data was then exported into a 3-D printing software to print out the product. A computational finite element analysis (FEA) was performed on the product to evaluate its performance under simulated mechanical loadings. The pre-processing settings prior to the analysis were set as follow: 1) Element type: Four-nodes tetrahedral; 2) Mesh size: 3.0mm; 3) Material properties: Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (Young's modulus, E of 2.3GPa and Poisson's ratio, v of 0.35); 4) Load: 650 N/mm2 (pressure); and 5) Boundary conditions: The bottom surface of the container (fixed in all directions). The FEA results exhibited that the predicted mechanical stress generated within the proposed 3-D printed design model was satisfactorily to provide a convincing response. Moreover, an actual testing was also conducted among different corn peelers and the findings depicted that the proposed product promoted an increase up to 48.7 and 33.3% in peeling time and amount of kernels extracted, respectively. Therefore, the new design of corn peeler which produced through 3-D printing technique is evident to tackle the disadvantages of existing peelers, besides the low cost and rapid processing time offered by additive manufacturing methods without compromising the quality are significantly desirable.