Prototype of Chipping and Briquetting Machine for Eucalyptus Wood Processing

Abstract

This paper presents eucalyptus, versatile plants that can grow well in almost every area of Thailand. In the future, the demand for eucalyptus wood tends to increase both domestically and internationally because eucalyptus wood has become a major raw material in various industries and is also an important source of energy in terms of biomass fuel production. The research team has designed and built a eucalyptus woodchipper and pelletizer prototype. The machine has a width of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1,300 \text{mm}$</tex>, a length of 800 mm, and a height of 900 mm. Inside the machine, there are log conveying systems, a shredder, and a pelletizing system. The shredder uses a 2.2 kW gear motor for shredding logs and a set of 23 blades. The conveying system consists of 4 upper and lower conveyors and uses a 0.2 kW gear motor. The speed is controlled by an inverter. The pelletizing system uses a hydraulic system for compression, which has a hydraulic pump motor as the source of pressure. In the prototype pelletizing and baling test, the optimum speed of the conveying machine was set at 5 rpm, the chopping speed at 320 rpm and the baling pressure at 220 <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\text{kg} / \text{cm} 2$</tex>. The processing of eucalyptus into the form of wood chips reduces the volume of eucalyptus by 46 percent, allowing more logs to be transported at a time and significantly reducing transportation costs. In addition, the creation of new products from eucalyptus processing will help generate more income for eucalyptus farmers than just cutting and selling eucalyptus.