American Journal of Mechanical Engineering
American
Journal of Mechanical Engineering|| Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Wet
Legume Dehulling Machine
By Egbe E.A.P., Roland B.O.
Abstract
The traditional method of dehulling
legumes such as cowpea, soya beans and locust beans is by rubbing the
seeds between the palms or by pounding in mortar but this process
consumes time and energy. A motorized wet type legume dehuller was
designed and fabricated to de-hull soaked seeds. It was designed to work
on the principle of compression for the splitting of the soaked seed
coat. The de-hulling is achieved by shear and friction between the beans
coat and the wall of the de-hulling chamber. The device was designed
and fabricated using locally available materials and technology. The
motorized legume de-huller operates at effective de-hulling speed of 438
rpm and achieved a maximum efficiency of 95.2% for 6 minutes soaking
period for cowpea, 72.2% efficiency for soya beans soaked in hot water
for 30 minutes and 62.5% efficiency for 15 hours cooking period for
locust beans, The de-huller was designed for feed rate of 500 seeds per
second.
Keywords: legume, dehulling, abrasive, strength, soaking period
1. Introduction
Legume is an important food item (because of its high protein and fat contents) in Nigeria and most West African countries [1].
Dehulled cowpea is required in the preparation of some table meals
(fried beans cake-akara, boiled cake-moimoi). In spite of the widespread
use of beans as a staple food among Nigerians, the dehulling of beans
is carried out manually. The operation generally requires soaking the
cowpeas in water for 2 to 10 minutes [2]
draining and rubbing between the palms, or beating with wooden pestle
and mortar. Housewives and food vendors carry out these operations daily
[3].
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