DESIGN & MANUFACTURING OF CASHEW NUT SHELLING MACHINE PAPER

This paper deals with the mechanical characteristics of cashew nut and cutting the shell in a mechanized way to reduce the time. Presently shearing of shell of cashew nut is done manually, which is labour intensive and hazardous. During shearing of cashew nut shell a liquid is coming out which is corrosive which is hazardous and in turn consumes the lot of time because of its oily property. This automatic power operated cashew nut Sheller may be operated by unskilled worker. The release of kernel from the shell with no damage and breakage is possible with this. An automatic power operated cashew nut Sheller is based on the principle of shear with respect to cutters is mounted on sliding guide ways. Now-a-days few automatic cashew nut shelling machines are present but there are some problems such as it cannot be adjusted along the guide as per the size of cashew nut therefore efficiency of machine may get reduced and cost may increase. This research overcomes the problem by manufacturing automatic cashew nut shelling machine using spring adjustment guide with respect to size of cashew nut and in turn improves the efficiency. Firstly fracture point of cashew nut shell and depth required for cutting the shell is determined, after that as per fracture point the guide Vee is designed near cutting section. An automatic cashew nut Sheller is having two cutters to shear the cashew nut shelling with automatic feeding of cashew nut one after another through Vee guide. Cutter is mounted on sliding guide ways which move between the two Vee guides which carries two blades which creates impact load on cashew nut. These two blades are used to split the kernels from shell by operating the cutter. After de-shelling, nut falls freely in tray due to the gravity. The finding suggests the capacity of the machine as 25kg/hr. This paper summarizes a semi automatic method over manual method. It also deals with the advantages of semi automatic metho