DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF POWER OPERATED BANANA SLICER FOR SMALL SCALE FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRIES
ABSTRACT
A power rotary banana slicer suitable for small scale processing was designed and developed based on engineering properties of banana varieties, namely Nendran and Dwarf Cavendish. This banana slicer mainly consists of feeders for round slicing, cutter, power transmission mechanism, base support and frame. 111e power operated rotary slicer with three blade cutter that was operating at 36CJ rpm speed was developed to overcome drawbacks of existing hand or power operated rotary slicers and to meet the demand of small scale processing industries. This slicer has slicing efficiency of about a 93-94·% with effective capacity of about 100 kg/h for both varieties. The mean thickness of cut for both varieties was about 2.00 ± 0.194 mm, whereas mean roundness was of 0.84 and 0.70 for Nendran and Dwarf Cavendish varieties respectively.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Bana (Musa paradisieca) is “Apple of paradise” because it is the one of the eldest cultivated fruits known to mankind. It is also, the most nutritious, it is originated in hot tropical regions of South-east Asia, India first in production of mango (40%) and banana (17%) of the world production. India is the largest producer of banana of banana and plantains in the world with the production of 16.82 million from an area of 0.49 million ha. In India it accounts for 33% of total production of fruit crops. Cavendish is the major cultivar covering (62%) Bluggoes (6%) Mendran (plantain 5%) sick (4%) pome (4%) and others (3%). The cultivation of banana is mainly distributed in other states like Nigeria, Camarium, Canan, Togo, Mahara stra Kar nata ka, 4 ssam, west Bengal. The production of banana is the highest in Tamil Nadu followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka. The Indian average productivity is 34.3t/ha while the highest productivity is 34.3t/ha is in Maharashtra with