| Common traditional techniques of breaking palm kernel nuts in rural areas where it is produced involved a lots of drudgery and hazard. The goal of this research work was to design, construct and test the performance of a palm kernel nut cracking machine for local use at affordable cost. Samples were test-ran, cracked and replicated at different shaft speeds (r/min). with developed machine. The results showed that the un-cracked nuts were 2.50%, 2.00%, 1.50%, 1.25% and 1.00 %, the partially cracked were 2.75%, 2.75%, 2.25%, 2.00% and 1.75 %, the un-broken kernels were 93%, 94%, 95%, 94.5% and 94 %, that of broken kernels were 1.75%, 1.50%, 1.50%, 2.50% and 3.25 % at set speeds of 800, 1200, 1600, 2000 and 2400 r/min respectively. The throughput of the... |
