Formulation of experimental data based model for oil press using human powered flywheel motor as energy source

Human powered oil press extracts oil from oilseeds. The extracted oil can be used for eating purpose or even in laboratories where one can take different tests on the oil. A machine was fabricated which will perform this pressing operation not by electric power but by human power. It is seen that human power is sufficient enough to be converted into work. The evolution of oil press by using human power is a complex phenomenon. There are many factors affecting the performance of oil press. To study man-machine interaction and human fatigue in various agricultural tasks, AICRP on HESA (All India Coordinated Research Project on “Human Engineering and Safety in Agriculture”) (1996) started by Indian Council of Agricultural Research, used experimental approach. As a result of the continuous variation of speed of the process unit input shaft, understanding of the phenomenon of execution of the process cannot be logic based. Hence it is necessary to adopt application of Methodology of Experimentation to such a process for formulating experimental data based model. Hence Theory of Experimentation, provided by H. Schenck Jr. was applied. In this paper, an approximate generalized data based model for such a human powered oil press is developed by varying independent parameters during the experimentation. Subsequently the optimization of the model was established. Thus the results of this experimental research would be useful to farmers or small scale entrepreneurs in the rural area, where there is 10 to 12 hours load sheding of electricity, especially in rural Maharashtra (India). This technology will not only improve the socioeconomic condition of the rural population, but also reduce the gap between supply and demand of edible oils. Keywords: Human powered flywheel motor, energy, oilseed, oil press, dependent variables, and independent variables