Development and performance evaluation of rotary drum grader for tomato Preetha P.*, Pandiselvam R., Deepa J., Varadharaju N. Department of Food and Agricultural Process Engineering, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India *Corresponding author: preethafoodtech@gmail.com
Online published on 21 March, 2016. Abstract Grading is one of the most important unit operations in packing houses by which it enables to obtain a good and appealing packing system. To standardize the tomatoes for export or marketing in local markets the rotary drum grader was developed in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. It consists of a drum in which the holes are made based on the standard size of tomatoes. It is manually operated using a handle fitted to the shaft which is mounted on the main frame using a wooden block. The performance evaluation was done to optimizing the peripheral speed, inclination angle and feed rate. As the tomatoes are fed through the hopper into the rotating drum, it gets separated according to size. It is portable and can be used in the field. By conducting different study the efficiency of grader was found to be 80% at 16º inclination angle, 175 kg.h–1 feed rate and 15 rpm peripheral speed. Highlights Rotary Drum grader for tomato were developed in TamilNadu Agricultural University. Grader is used for local markets to grade tomato according to its size Based on size, tomato fetch higher prices in market.
Top Keywords Tomato, grader, sorter, degree of grading, fraction yield, peripheral speed, inclination angle. Top |