Application of Green Technology in Agriculture Sector – A Solution for Sustainable Food Production

ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846 Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 9(6), DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2016/v9i6/87675, February 2016 ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645

Application of Green Technology in Agriculture Sector – A Solution for Sustainable Food Production P. Benrajesh1* and A. John Rajan2 1Sathyabama

University, Chennai – 600119, Tamil Nadu, India; ben.rajesh@christuniversity.in 2 Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Sathayabama University, Chennai – 600119, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract Objective: To design a semi-automatic thresher, which can produce seeds without having broken grains, un-threshed grains, spilled grains and to reduce the overlapping timespan due to the early arrival of monsoons.Method: The steps involved in the construction of semi-automatic thresher are • Feedback data of the farmers collected from the various surveys and articles. • Designing of the semi-automatic threshing by 3D modelling software. • Material planning and Procurement. • Assembly and installation. • Testing and Validation. Findings: The results obtained from the thresher are plotted in the graphical layout with the equipment type (on X-axis) and the quantity threshed efficiently (on Y-axis). The Semi-automated thresher are selected as an optimum one among the preferred choices, based on the driving parameters such as good efficiency, low accident history, power independent, easy mode of transfer and portable equipment which will facilitate the farmers to reach the delta area easily. Applications/Improvements: • Versatile utility equipment for different grain seeds (maize, cow pea) by small changes in the design. • Collecting tray is pivoted over a revolving cam to discern the chaff.

Keywords: Agricultural Equipment, Green Technology, Pedaller Threshing

1. Introduction

Thresher is a modern day tool, used for augmenting the farm productivity. Farmers felt that hand threshing is a drudging and fatigue filled work. It consumes one-fourth of agricultural labor force for threshing and winnowing.

Rural projects got huge impact in the food production cycle. This article explains the state-of-art of semiautomated thresher mechanism. The objective of this paper is to reach the poor farmers of India, by designing and developing a cost-effective thresher. The loss of grain seeds, during winnowing can be reduced to the significant numbers by using this mechanism.

Primitive Threshing method carried by hand flails, animal hooves are time consuming and laborious. Hand threshing method can produce less than a ton per day and the quality of segregation is low. In the hand threshing

* Author for correspondence

method, winnowing has to be carried in additional phases. The wheat straws have to pass through multiple stages before giving its grain seed. The stages involved are cut, stroked, hauled, threshed, de-chaffed, and straw baled.

In the Prehistoric era, threshing was done by beating sticks and in Egypt; livestock’s are used for threshing. In Palestine, threshing sledge is used for threshing, whereas in Nigeria, threshing is done by bare hands. Performance of thresher are depends upon its size, cylinder speed, cylinder concave clearance, fan speed and sieve shaker.

This article1 identifies the parameters which provide the direct impact on the thresher performance. They are crop variety, shape and size, hardness of the seed, moisture content of seed, density, and few design parameters such as hopper dimensions, main frame, threshing bars, shaft design, maximum power achieved by shaft, shearing

Application of Green Technology in Agriculture Sector – A Solution for Sustainable Food Production

force, bending moment, torsional moment, length of belt, center distance of belt, torsional stress, lateral rigidity, screen et. al. Efficiency of the thresher achieved by this design reaching the lofty value of 99.2%.

In 1636, Sir John Van Berg developed a primitive thresher with several flails operated by cranks.

(Encyclopedia Britannica, 1969). In 1837, Hiram and John Pitts of Winthrop have developed a threshing machine which can execute its work on horse power. In 1976, Andrew Meikle built a thresher, which combines the blow of flails with the thresher and it is called as Combine. In this process, beaters are attached with the revolving drum forcing the grain against the ribs of the concave sieve kept under the drum.

1.1 Need for Thresher

Hand threshing process unable to produce the grain seeds without broken grains, such as unthreshed grain, blown grain, Spilled grain, dummy grain. Moreover, the dummy grain percent is not tightly controlled by the farmers, due to its potential utility. Dummy grains have a unique attribute of absorbing the moisture, from the paddy seeds when both are piled in the bags together. Bureau of Indian standards have specified that total grain loss should not exceed 5 percent of which the broken grain’s share should not be more than 2 percent.

The article discusses the way of meeting the tentative deadlines for the harvesting, reaping, threshing without high complexity. During the early arrival of monsoons, the proposed time span for threshing may be overlapped with the next phase of seed sowing season, which will create a deep hollow in the profit. Mechanized threshers with fully automated and semi-automated can reduce the time consumption by 80 percent and 43 percent respectively (Table 1.). In the ancient days, threshing can be done by hand flails or by treading the crop with animals. During threshing, probable of grain losses are broken grain, unthreshed grain, blown grain, spilled grain and its chances have to be reduced to the minimum level. In this article, thresher was classified based on its shape and its types are Drummy type, Hammer mill type, Spike tooth type, Rasp bar type, wire loop type, axial flow type, syndicator type. In the drummy type, beaters are mounted on a shaft which rotates inside a closed casing and it is concave in shape whereas hammer mill type was provided with a sieve shaker for cleaning grains. The third type thresher has a unique attribute of threshing the grain by the perimeter spikes attached to a cylinder2-3.

2

Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

In the rasp bar type, corrugated shafts are attached to the cylinder which facilitates the threshing process. The wire loop type thresher has a wire loop attached to the periphery of closed type cylinder and the axial flow thresher has a spiky tooth cylinders with a helically placed louvers attached to the upper casing.

The design of a thresher after rectifying the setbacks of the past generation equipments are discussed in this article4. It evaluates the parameters of grain to be threshed and the driving variables of the thresher. The grain focused here is cow pea and its variables are length, width, thickness, equivalent diameter, sphericity and the grain pod ratio. Thresher’s major variables are star shaped beater length, diameter of thresher tunnel, motor plower, beater belt length. The intuition of this article is to design a thresher at lower cost with a high value added to it. Grainpod ratio defined as the ratio of weight of clean grains to the pod weight. Thresher efficiency can be increased by reducing moisture ratio. The entire equipment has three elements namely feeding unit, threshing unit and winnowing unit.

The designed motor thresher for a single variety paddy was discussed in this article5. The parameters such as drum speed, crop moisture content are analyzed and it was found that it had a huge impact on the threshing loss. It is recommended to use wet grains rather than dry grains to have low threshing loss. In the auto head feed threshing machine6, the driver variables for reducing the threshing loss are identified and it is evaluated.

Variables identified for investigation are damaged grain percent and materials other than grain to grain ratio and it is concluded that optimum speed to reach the desired percentage of threshing are 650 rpm.

1.2 Methods of Threshing

Threshing is defined as the process of separating the grain from the rest of the plant. (Straw and the chaff). It is classified based on its unique execution process. They are • Hand Threshing • Hold on thresher • Feed-in Thresher Hand threshing is the key process, followed in the past centuries with huge task force. It requires a huge lot of twenty five percent from the total crew involved in the agriculture, to accomplish it. Hold–on thresher is an example for mechanized thresher, where the labor requirement was reduced to one or two personnel for operating open rotating drum along with sheaves (Figure Indian Journal of Science and Technology

P. Benrajesh and A. John Rajan

1.). Feed-in thresher, is designed with a closed chute channel to reach the revolving drum, where a labor has to force the sheaves into the rotating drum (Figure 2.).

• •

Portability Power source – Due to frequent power cuts, farmers prefer stand alone or pedaling threshers • Ease of use • Safety • Cost Output quality2 of the threshed grain is based on the percentage of the chaff, straw along with the paddy. The dummy grains in the paddy will acts like a translucent wall for transpiration of water from paddy.

1.4 Flow Chart of Grain Post-Harvest Refer Figure-3 and Figure-4 in appendix

Figure 1. Hold on threshing;

Figure 2. Feed-in thresher.

1.3 P otential Factors for Discernment of the Thresher • • • •

Threshing rate Threshing Loss Versatility Output quality

Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

Figure 3. Hand threshing cycle3.

Indian Journal of Science and Technology

3

Application of Green Technology in Agriculture Sector – A Solution for Sustainable Food Production

(a) Feeding Chute angle (b) Cylinder type (c) Cylinder diameter (d) Spike Shape, Size, number (e) Concave size, shape and clearance • Operational Factors (a) Cylinder speed (b) Feed rate, Method of feeding (c) Machine adjustments

2. Design of Pedalled Hold-on Thresher 2.1 Components Required Figure 4. Mechanised threshing cycle.

1.5 Demerits of Automated Feed-in Thresher

Automated thresher with poor design can leads to intense accidents in threshing fields. The quantity of the scatter of various accidents is 5000 to 10000 deaths, 15000 to 20000 amputations, and 150000 to 200000 serious injuries7.

During analysis, 54 percent of Indian farmers have longer elbow length than the chute cover which makes them to access the covered revolving tumbler while it rotates. The driver parameters for accidents are feeding chute angle of 0 to 15 degrees and the chute length of cover is less than 45 cm. The article7 shows the optimized parameters for reducing accidents are to raise the chute angle to 25 degree and the chute cover length to 60 centimeters.

1.6 Factors Affecting Thresher’s Performance • Crop Factors (a) Variety of Crop (b) Moisture in Crop Material • Machine Factors

• • • • • • • •

Pedal arrangement Horizontal beam support Supporting Frame Chain and Sprocket mechanism Thresher drum with metal spikes Dual chain drive pulley Wire mesh Collecting tray

2.2 Design Criteria • • • •

Equipment designed shall be a cost sensitive & a portable in size.

Mild steel with ductile attribute is preferred for frame, Mesh, Pulley, Barrel.

Hardened steel with brittle nature is used for weight bearing tools such as spring and chain drives.

The threshing efficiency shall supersede the manual labor’s hand threshing method.

2.3 Technical Specifications Refer Table -1 in Appendix

Table 1. Specifications of Pedaled Hold-on thresher S NO 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

4

PARTS NAME Frame Rolling barrel Spring Mesh Pulley Chain Drive

MATERIAL Mild Steel Steel Hardened Steel Mild Steel Mild Steel Hardened Steel

Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

QUANTITY 01 01 01 01 04 01

SPECIFICATION IS 277 Steel Wall thickness 1.2mm Diameter 1 mm wire, Pitch 2 mm 450 X 300 hole, Diameter 6 mm Dia 76.2 mm Perimeter 1300 mm

Indian Journal of Science and Technology

P. Benrajesh and A. John Rajan

2.4 Drawing Model

Refer Figure -5 in Appendix

• • •

Envelope casing for the barrel (Refer Figure -7) is made up of sheer metal of aluminum Attachment of wire mesh and the collecting tray has to be kept over the cam Drive the chain and thresh the sheaves and get the collection in the tray

Figure 5. Three dimensional cad model of thresher.

Thresher was designed in a solid modeler tool based on the farmer feedback and then it undergone feasibility check, before it reaches the production line.

2.5 Fabrication Visuals Refer Figure -6 in Appendix

Figure 6. Fixing the metal drum.

2.6 Fabrication Steps • • •

Extract the chassis of thresher from the old bicycle which is made up of material steel IS 277 Manufacture a rolling barrel made up of steel with the wall thickness of 1.2 mm Multi chain drive system has to be fixed to extract the power from the driving wheel to multiple driven wheels

Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

Figure 7. Installing a chain sprocket in the frame.

2.7 Utility Comparison Chart

Refer Figure -8 and Table-2 in Appendix

Figure 8. Threshing Process vs. Grain Extract.

Table 2. Comparative chart S NO 1.

2.

3.

TYPE Manual Labor Pedaling Thresher Motor driven Thresher

GRAIN EXTRACT (Kg/Hour) 150 to 300 300-700 500 - 2000

Indian Journal of Science and Technology

5

Application of Green Technology in Agriculture Sector – A Solution for Sustainable Food Production

6

3. Conclusions

4. Acknowledgements

Pedaling Hold-on threshers are designed and its utility was evaluated and validated based on its efficiency. It shows that 50 percent increase in the production with the restricted grain losses of up to 1 to 2 percent. It can generate 300 to 700 kilogram per hour rather than 150 to 300 kilogram per hour by Hand thresher. Pedaled thresher avoids accidents, whereas automated thresher which runs at heavy speeds of 500 to 1000 rpm may have the extreme trauma of losing lives during operation. In the sub Saharan Countries8, FAO encourages to plant the paddy seeds in their native lands for reducing the cost of import.

In the article7, it compares the discomfort zone of the human labor employed in manual beating and the manually operated thresher. It analyses the heart beat rate, energy consumed during the process and pressure points of human body where intense pain was sensed. The average age of employee selected for this job is between 20 to 45 years. At the end of every 20 minute cycle of manual beating of threshed grain, the average heart beat rate was 154.5 beats per minute9 and the average energy spent by a human was 17.64 Kilojoules per minute and the identified pressure points of a labor were lower back, right upper leg, right lower leg, right foot, right upper arm, right forearm.

In the pedal-operated thresher, the average heartbeat of the human labor is 122.5 beats per minute and the average energy spent is 12.80 kilojoules per minute and the pressure points of the labor due to the usage of the pedal operated thresher are pain at lower leg, feeding crop at bent posture. The spot light areas for further research are to identify the sphere of comfort zone established by the contemporary design and to reduce accidents in the automated threshers by installing interference sensors to stop the cycle of the threshing machine.

This section is to acknowledge the technical/fund/facility support providers

Vol 9 (6) | February 2016 | www.indjst.org

5. References 1. Abdulkadir, Mathew, Olufemi & Ikechkwu. The design and construction of maize threshing machine. AU J.T.2009 January; 12(3):199-206 -.

2. Testing of small scale threshing machines in rural karnataka. Date accessed: 2012; Available from: http://www.unapcaem.org/Activities%20Files/A1205_AS/PPT/LK_VN_01. pdf.

3. Harvesting and Threshing equipment. Date accessed: 2016; Available from: http://agricoop.nic.in/dacdivision/machinery1/chap5a.pdf.

4. Irtwange SV. Design, fabrication and performance of a motorized cow pea thresher for Nigerian small scale farmers.

African Journal of Agricultural Research. 2009 December ; 4:1383-1391.–.

5. Ezzatollah, Yousef, saeid. Study of performance parameters of Threshing unit in a Single plant thresher. American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Sciences, 2009; 4(2):9296.

6. Askari and Pour Abbas. Investigation of the effective factors on threshing loss, damaged grains percent and material other than grain to grain ratio on an auto head feed threshing unit. American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Sciences.2008; 3(4):699-705.

7. Kumar Adarsh, Mohan Dinesh et. al. Developement of grain threshers based on ergonomic design criteria. Applied Ergonomics. 2002; 33():503-508.

8. Ouezou, Makkenibe & Koji. Design of throw in type rice thresher for small scale farmers. Indian Journal of Science and Technology. ISSN: 0974- 6846, 2009;2(9)().

9. Seema, Vinay and Suneeta. A Comparative study on the Manual beating of Paddy and Manual operated paddy thresher on farm women. J Hum Ecol. 2010; 32(3):183187().

Indian Journal of Science and Technology