Main Article Content
Determination of the effect of quantity of maize cobs and shelling speed on the performance of a maize sheller
Abstract
Arable farming of maize is the most common of all crops in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most often, the processing is done domestically using manual effort, but on few occasions some part are done visiting commercial mechanized processors. This work presents the evaluation of the performance of a maize sheller scaled for domestic use. Three set of maize input (2kg, 3kg and 5kg) were each tested at different shelling speed of 2500 rpm, 2600 rpm and 2800 rpm respectively. The output parameters measured were; shelled maize, unshelled maize, cylinder loss and spilled loss. Subsequently, shelling capacity, cylinder loss (%) and spilled loss (5) were determined. It was however discovered that the 5kg shelling at 2600 rpm gave the highest shelling capacity at 24. This is in agreement with the assessment of the machine when 10kg maize was shelled at 2600 rpm.