Design Enhancement Evaluation of a Castor Seed Shelling Machine

A milling roller type Castor Seed Shelling Machine (CSSM-1) was designed and produced, considering all active parts on the basis of strength and rigidity. In this current work, the machine was modified to CSSM-2 to correct all the short comings of CSSM-1. The design and characteristics was based on the use of Nigeria-Small Castor Seed size to obtain the performance characteristics by grouping the seeds into six batches. By the reduction in size of CSSM-2, the machine was made portable and lighter by the design improvement on the roller shaft and other component parts. At the optimum milling shaft speed of 276.92 rpm, the shelling, cleaning (separation), and breakage efficiencies of the new machine were recorded as 96.34%, 96.24% and 11.05% respectively; hence CSSM-2 was effectively enhanced up to 96%.