Development of mungbean sheller with drudgery reduction for rural women

The general objective of the project is to design and develop a mungbean sheller with ergonomic characteristics to reduce drudgery on the part of rural women. The mungbean sheller was developed to greatly help the mungbean farmers save time and energy in shelling, reduce the drudgery in production, minimize the dust cause irritation to skin, increase the production and lessen the postharvest losses. It would also provide solution to the problem on lack of labor. The major component of the fabricated unit was composed of four major components namely: the shelling assembly, separation assembly, cleaning assembly andpower/power transmission. The shelling was achieved by means of the impact of the pegtooth exerted on the mungbean pod. The height of the feeding hopper is around 150 cm making it suitable and ideal for manual feeding. The mixture of pod, beans and impurities are separated through an oscillating perforated tray. The cleaning assembly is composed of suction blower, ducting and cyclone. It has a suction blower that limits the dust around the machine when operated and at the same time cleans the final product of impurities. Power unit was composed of engine as source of power and combination of belt and pulley. The prototype is powered by a 5hp gasoline engine. Field testing was conducted in two sites in San Jacinto and San Fabian, Pangasinan. The aim was to operate the machine in ideal and field conditions. The speed of the shelling drum was set at 350 revolutions per minute during the field testing. Results revealed that the prototype unit produces lesser cracked beans. It could minimize dust which mungbean farmer's aim was of producing clean whole bean ready for market. The field testing data gave a computed input capacity of 300 kg/h and a percent purity of 97.30%. The mungbean farmers of San Jacinto, Pangasinan stated that the developed mungbean sheller greatly helped them. They requested to use the machine in their area every harvest season. The capacity of the developed technology has an input capacity of 300 kg/h from the optimum set-up identified with computed average shelling efficiency of 94.35%, shelling recovery of 92.84%, mechanically damaged beans of 0.11% and Purity of 98% at shelling drum speed of 350 revolutions per minute.