Design and simulation of a mechanized pili nut cracking machine

• Main Author: Tan, Kean Anderson S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: Canarium—Cracking—Equipment and supplies; Manufacturing
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_mem/4; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=etdm_mem
• Institution: De La Salle University

The Philippines, being a tropical country, allows Pili trees to become suitable for planting and therefore allowing it to have a potential to be a major commercial nut crop here in the Philippines. To increase Pili Nut exportation, there have been research and developments of mechanized Pili nut crackers for post-production, but these existing machines' lack of knowledge of the properties of pili nuts have contributed to the poor performance in terms of cracking the shell, which may result in damaged kernels. Only the experienced bolo-wielding farmhand has proven effective, which in turn could be a point of reference in designing the cracking mechanism. This research aims to design a new machine that can replicate the manual method of post processing operations of cracking the Pili Nut, to minimize wastage of materials or reduce mechanical damage and improve the post harvesting process of Pili nut’s shell and kernel by using finite element analysis (FEA) method. Keywords: Pili Nut, Kernel, Crack, Centering, FEA