Design and development of an improved palm kernel shelling and sorting machine

This paper presents a design and development of an improved palm kernel shelling and sorting machine. The varying physical and mechanical properties of the identified species of palm kernel nuts during fracture, as a means of determining the critical load required to cause fracture on the palm kernel nuts, without damage on the nut meat within were considered. The necessary evaluation of the cracking and sorting units were properly achieved through a wide range of design criteria; basically load estimation, kernel size, moisture content of shells and motion resistance of shells/kernels. These design considerations were used to calculate the required momentum necessary to achieve the needed force of cracking, and to determine the effective sorting approach. The velocity and kernel-shell characteristics evaluation are the significant factors used in the design of the optimal configurations of the shelling impeller and the sorting technique respectively. The machine optimum shelling-sorting efficiency was found to be 90 percent, throughput capacity was 59kg/h, and whole kernel recovery was 70 percent, with ease of operation, low costs of production and maintenance