in National Development

The aim of this work was to develop a simple, human driven, low cost portable rice thresher. This objective is in line with the general policy of the Indonesian government, which allows limited form of agri-cultural mechanization in Java due to enormous population pressure. In this work the average and optimal power produced by a human being was measured using a bicycle-ergometer. Besides that the power requirement of the thresher, which consists of a wire loop threshing drum with con-cave screen and a winnower, was also determined. The data showed that the thresher can be driven by a man within a reasonable period of time. In addition, the threshing efficiency and the cleanness of the rice grain were observed during field tests. The capacity of the unit was about 100 kg/hour and it should be operated by 3 man