DefinePK

Abstract

A palm fruit bunch stripper was designed and developed at the Department of Agricultural Engineering Technology, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo state, Nigeria.  The machine was evaluated for the stripping of quartered bunches. Studies were conducted on the effect of machine speed (1500rpm, 2000rpm and 2500rpm) and the time of steaming (10min, 20min and 30min) on the machine out-put capacity, efficiency and quality performance efficiency. The performance was also evaluated at different levels of machine and crop variables. Machine speed and time of steaming statistically affected the machine performance at 5% significance level using the Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT). The performance was found to be influenced by all studied variables. However, the machine gave the best stripping efficiency of 93.4%, quality performance of 91.2% and output capacity of 74.9kg/h with the least damaged seed of 0.4% at 2500rpm machine speed and 30min time of steaming, when compared with other combinations of variables.