Design and fabricate of a sunflower thresher machine

Author

Chingoma, Alan

Title

Design and fabricate of a sunflower thresher machine

Abstract

Sunflower production is increasing in Zimbabwe, but farmers face problems separating the seeds from the sunflower heads. Sunflowers are traditionally threshed by beating the heads manually with a stick. The project focuses on solving the problem faced by the farmers in separating the seeds from the sunflower. Farmers use the manual methods due to unavailability of suitable machinery for sunflower threshing. During manual sunflower production, the most time and labor-consuming operation is the threshing of sunflower by beating the sunflower heads with a stick, rubbing wear heads against a rough metal surface or power tiller treading machine. The aim of the project is to fabricate a machine which will separate the seeds from the sunflower. The main components required to fabricate the machine are rotor, Shaft, Pulley, beaters, thresher box, Hopper, Tray, Sieves, engine, V-Belt and Bearings. The sunflower threshing unit operates on the principle of axial flow movement of the material. The sunflower is threshed in a closed threshing unit by rotating beaters where the seeds are separated from flower and husk of the flower is removed. The goal of this experiment is to design and develop a motor-driven machine that separates the seeds from the sunflower. An orthographic projection was drawn using AutoCAD software and threshing machine was then fabricated according to the drawing in the Bindura university workshop using locally available materials.

Date

December 2023

Publisher

BUSE

Keywords

Sunflower production

Sunflower thresher machine

Seed separation

Post-harvest processing

Manual threshing methods

Supervisor

Engineer W. Zendera