DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF GROUNDNUT SHELLING AND SEPARATING MACHINE

This work focused on the design and fabrication of a groundnut shelling and separating machine electrically powered by a 0.5hp motor. The machine has the capacity of shelling 60kg of groundnut per hour with a shelling and separating efficiencies of 80% and 85% respectively. The machine was fabricated from locally sourced materials, which makes it cheap and easily affordable and also easy and cheaper to maintain. It is also of light weight and comprises of the hopper, crushing chamber, separation chamber and the blower unit. During the process of testing, it was observed that majority of the groundnut pods that came out unshelled or partially shelled were the ones with one seed per pod and those with two small seeds in their pods