A double blade splitting machine for Cyperus sedge culms (Cyperus corymbosus Rottb.)
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Abstract
Sedges are a natural material that can be made into mats and other products to replace plastic. Preparing sedge threads includes harvesting, sorting by size and color, splitting, and finally drying them. Splitting is an important step because using equipment can increase process speed. The objective of this research is to design, build, test, and evaluate the performance of a sedge-splitting machine. The main feature of this machine is its two pairs of blades, 7 mm apart, arranged in a perpendicular manner. This allows splitting the sedges into four threads while simultaneously removing the core. Five sedge clums are simultaneously processed. The machine was tested at three roller speeds, 197, 205, and 214 rpm. Its speed is not constant but varies between the lowest and highest speeds. This process was compared to one employing manual labor. The quantity of sedge threads that the machine split varied with its speed. Therefore, the machine’s overall production was estimated by averaging its output at these three speeds. It could process an average of 649.3 sedge culms/h, which is more than three times faster than the manual process, 195.4 culms/h. This research also studied the effect of culm moisture content on the machine’s operating capacity. It was found that moisture content had no effect on the working rate of either the machine or the manual process. However, it did affect the machine’s efficiency. Processing freshly cut culms enabled the highest efficiency, 90%. However, the manual process showed an average 98% efficiency when the culms had a moisture content between 84-90%.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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