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Assessment on the efficiency of a papaya and cantaloupe fruit peeling machine
Author(s)
Thongsroy, Bandit
Klajring, Vinai
Date Issued
September 1, 2017
Type
Article
Abstract
A prototype papaya and cantaloupe peeling machine was designed, constructed, tested, and evaluated. The machine was designed to peel most of the outer husk to reduce production time and labor cost. The prototype was based on a lathe-peeling machine with a main frame, fruit holder module, blade set, programmable electronic controller and variable speed drive. Results from tests showed that the best settings for the machine were 350 rpm blade set speed, 200 rpm fruit holder rotational speed, as well as 2.45 and 6.07 mm peeled skin thicknesses of papaya and cantaloupe, respectively. The weights of peeled papaya and cantaloupe were 93.48% and 85.43% of the intact fruits; the peeling times were 17.95 and 16.42 fruits s-1; and the peeling capacity was recorded at 201 and 219 fruits h-1, respectively. The device can help solve the problem of manual labor shortage in the agricultural sector as the quality of the peeled fruit was found to be acceptable to a group of planters and merchants.
Citation
Philippine Agricultural Scientist, 100(3), 308-314, 2017