Effect of Cutting Velocity and Slot Size on the Efficiency of a Cocoyam Chipper

The developed cocoyam chipper was evaluated. Two varieties of cocoyam tubers (NXs 001 and NXs 002) were used. The machine cutting velocities used were 3. 60, 3.93, 4.25, 4.58 and 4.91m/s, and the chipping slot sizes used were 0.0014, 0.0016 and 0.0018 m2. Statistical analysis was used to evaluate the effect of cutting velocity and the chipping slot size on the efficiency of the cocoyam chipper. The analysis results showed that the cutting velocity within the range of 3.6 to 4.91m/s had a significant effect at 0.05 level, on the efficiency of the cocoyam chipper. Also, the chipping slot size within the range of 0.0014 to 0.0018m2 had a highly significant effect at 0.01 level. The data obtained also showed that the highest efficiency of 85.18% was obtained at machine cutting velocity of 4.91m/s and chipping slot size of 0.0018m2. These ranges of chipping slot sizes and cutting velocities are therefore recommended to obtain the maximum chipping efficiency of cocoyam chipper