Design and development of water hyacinth chopper and blender | |
| Author | Handaya, Remigius |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.AE-84-01 |
| Subject(s) | Water-hyacinth Forage harvesting machinery |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Environment, Resources & Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | A chopper and a blender were designed, fabricated, tested and evaluated for comminuting water hyacinth as a fish pond input. The chopper was designed with four horizontal, rotating blades of 76 cm diameter, inside a cylindrical housing with a screen under the blades. The Water hyacinth was fed by dropping it into the hopper, and cut directly. The blender was designed separately with four horizontal, rotating knives inside a cylindrical tube of 35 cm inner diameter. The chopped hyacinth was blended with water to make slurry. Chopping tests were conducted with individual plants with different chopper speed and mass of the plant. Blending tests were conducted with different speed, volume of blending water and blending time. Power requirements and chopping time were measured. A floating test was conducted to measure the degree of comminution of the product. Regression analyses resulted in prediction models of the power requirements components: for the driving system, the chopper shaft friction, and for blending either merely water of with water hyacinth. The machines offered a wide range of the degree of comminution by selecting different operating parameters. The screen of the chopper is found to be a disadvantage. |
| Year | 1984 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development |
| Department | Department of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (Former title: Department of Food Agriculture, and BioResources (DFAB)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Agricultural and Food Engineering (AE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Gee-Clough, D. |
| Examination Committee(s) | Singh, Gajendra ;Edwards, Peter |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | ASEAN-USAID |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1984 |