CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) originated from North-eastern Brazil

and was brought to the Philippines in the 17th century. In the Philippines, cashew
is called kasoy. Cashew is one of the most important nut crops in the Philippines. It
is a versatile crop with many uses in the food industry. Ninety percent (90%) of the
cashew production of the country is being produced in Palawan which is known as
the cashew capital of the Philippines.

As the leading production center in the country, Palawan produced 13,183

MT of cashew seed in 2012 from its 2.2 million bearing trees. Cashew is mainly
marketed as seed from farmers to local traders and processors, as well as,
processors outside of the locality. Some growers/farmers process cashew nuts into
roasted splits and whole kernels and sell either directly to consumers, wholesalers,
or retailers. A small quantity of the product is usually left for family consumption.

Cashews is being grown primarily for their nuts and are processed into
different forms like dried, roasted, salted, fried, brittle, caramelized, and chocolate-
coated. Cashew apples are also processed as prunes, wine, vinegar and juice.
Cashew nut processing involves drying, shelling, peeling and roasting.

Statement of the Problem

 In small-scale (local) cashew nut processor, most of the activities are done
manually. Shelling is done by putting the raw cashew nut piece by piece to a flat
wooden surface, slicing it into halves and removing the nut using knife. This
practice is still done nowadays in different localities of Palawan.

According to Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP), approximately

15%-25% of the cashew nuts produced in Palawan are processed and sold in
Puerto Princesa City while the remaining volume is shipped to Metro Manila.
That’s why growers/farmers are only getting 5% of the share in income generated
while the retailers are garnering 53% of the income share in the value chain.

With this big difference in the share of income is the primary reason why the
researcher wants to design and fabricate a village-type cashew nut sheller to help
farmers increase their production and income.

Objectives of the Study

The general objective is to design, fabricate and evaluate the performance of

a cashew nut shelling machine for small-scale cashew nut processors/ cashew
farmers.
Specifically, it aims to:
1. design and fabricate a shelling machine made of locally available
materials adoptable to existing technologies in the Philippines.
2. test and evaluate the operating characteristics of the machine in terms of
capacity, efficiency and kernel recovery
3. conduct a simple cost analysis of the machine
Significance of the Study

The economic importance of cashew nuts demanded the design of a shelling

machine. This study could help farmers to the opportunities of increasing their
income as they produce nuts instead of selling as raw cashew nut. In addition, the
creation of the machine will simplify the cashew nut processing by reducing the
time and labor consumed of manual shelling.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

The shelling machine will be designed and evaluated only for cashew nut.
The study will employ only physical and mechanical analysis.

Design analysis and calculations will be based only on available methods for
gathering physical properties of the sample. If found efficient, simple cost analysis
will be employed.

Time and Place of the Study

The study will be conducted from January 2018 to July 2018. Fabrication of
the shelling machine will be at a local machine manufacturer in Puerto Princesa
City, Palawan while the evaluation will be done at Aborlan, Palawan.
The term “Cashew” has originated from the Brazilian name “Acajaiba” and the
Tupi name “Acaju” which the Portuguese converted into „Caju‟ and is commonly
known as “Kaju” in India. Cashew which belongs to the familyis native to the
tropical parts the USA, Mexico, Brazil and the West Indies. However, it has since
become naturalized in many lowland tropical areas. It is one of the most nutritious
food crops of the tropical world, with high protein and fat content. The largest
African producers of cashew nut are Mozambique and Tanzania with smaller
amount being produced in Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Senegal. Cashew nuts,
unlike the Brazil nut, have traveled well away from Brazil, and today India is one
of the major producers of cashews, so much so that people think that cashews are
native to India. In India, cashew was first introduced in Goa from where it spread
to other parts of the country. In the beginning it was mainly used for soil binding to
check erosion.The major cashew nut producing states in India are Maharashtra,
Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa and West
Bengal.The annual production of cashew nut varied throughout the study and the
variation ranged from -16.27 per cent to 14.37 percent.

1. Introduction of Cashew Fruit:

The nut is attached to the lower portion of the cashew apple which is conically
shaped. The cashew nut (seed) hangs at the bottom of the apple, and is c-shaped.
The cashew seed has within the outside shell the edible kernel or nut. In its raw
form the cashew kernel is soft, white and meaty. When roasted it changes colour
and taste. Cashew apples and cashew nuts are excellent sources of nutrition (0.25")
between columns. Spacing between lines in a paragraph is 1.05”. After each
section one line space has to be left. Between the paragraphs 6 points space has to
be left before and after the paragraph.
Cashew Plant Description

The cashew plant is an evergreen tree that grows up to 12 meters tall, with a
dome-shaped canopy bearing its foliage on the outside, where flowers and fruits
are found. The fruit has a kidney-shaped nut, about 3 cm x 1.2 cm attached to a
much enlarged receptacle forming the fruit-like cashew apple. The cashew apple is
pear-shaped, 10-20 cm x 4-8 cm, shiny, red to yellow, soft, and juicy. Having the
most commercial value, the cashew fruit is composed of the cashew apple
(pseudocarp) and the seed. Botanically considered as the fruit, the seed consists of
the nut (kernel) and shell or pericarp.
 Cashew apple

Cashew nut

Figure 1. Cashew

Cashew nuts consist of 35-45% kernel and around 55-65% of shells. The
shells contain 15-30% oil. A ton of seeds contains around 200 kg nuts and 180 kg
oil (cashew nut oil or cashew nut shell liquid “CNSL“).

Table 1. Recommended/Promising cashew Varieties in the Philippines

Postharvest Processing of Cashew Nut

The process consists of five main steps:
1. Shelling: removal of the outer shell and cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL)
2. Peeling: After the kernels are taken out of the shells, the testa (the thin skin
covering the kernel) must be removed
 3. Grading: into different sizes and colours in accordance with standard
grading
4. Drying or humidifying: to a final moisture content of 5%
5. Packing: into airtight bags or cans, depending upon the scale of operation

Uses of Cashew
Cashew nuts are processed into different forms like dried, roasted, salted,
fried, brittle, caramelized, and chocolate-coated. Cashew apples are also processed
as prunes, wine, vinegar and juice.

Related Shelling Machines for Cashew nuts

Ojolo, S.J. et al, 2010 designed and developed a cashew nut shelling
machine. It consists of feed hopper, shelling impeller, drive motor and casing. The
machine operates on the principle of impact in which the velocity is the required
parameter. The machine has a shelling capacity of 15.57 kg/h with shelling
efficiency of 95% and whole kernel recovery of 70%.
.
Jagtap, S.V. et al, 2008 developed a machine in which cashew are carried by
the chain conveyer for de-shelling. It consists of two powered cutter discs each
having four knifes. The two powered cutter discs attack the nut simultaneously and
the shell needs to be separated manually. This machine can process over 25 kg
cashew nuts per day.

The Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization

(PHilMech) designed a whole cashew kernel sheller that splits the shell without
injuring the nut. It uses a specialized blade that fits the irregular shape of the
cashew nut shell. It has low investment cost, durable, easy to operate and is made
of locally available materials.

Figure 2. Whole cashew kernel sheller (PHilmech)

Materials: The component selection for the system such as selection of motors, guides, springs, etc. was
selected based on the best configuration of components regarding reliability, life, ruggedness, etc. Single
Phase Face mounted AC Motor: The advantage of having single phase AC power as input means high
torque generation and fewer conversion losses. It is commercially available and can be repaired by any
technician with little expertise in electrical machines. A 20:1 Reduction Worm Gear Box: The input speed
of single-phase AC motor is 1440 rpm; it is much higher than the speed required for the machine. Also,
the torque generated is not sufficient, and thus, the use of worm gear box is needed. Therefore the
speed can be reduced to 72rpm. After considering the losses, the speed turns to be roughly 65 rpm.
Guides: The guides were needed for "to and fro" motion of the oscillator unit. Thus, a pair of cylindrical
rods with linear bearing was selected for the guide. The material needed to be light and sturdy at the
same time economic. Therefore stainless steel pipe of having 19 mm external diameter and 20mm
internal diameter bearing were selected. Oscillator: The oscillator unit drives the scrapper where the
force needed to push the cashew nut between the knives. The oscillator is heavy hence it offers resistant
to vibrations and also the counter force encountered by the knives is balanced by its weight
 CHAPTER II
2.LITERATURE REVIEW
The main economic characteristic of agriculture in developing countries is the
low level of manual productivity. While the benefits of technology have been
shown in many and varied circumstances, even rational and intelligent farmers
may resist their implementation, so any machine improvement involves a slow
rather than instantaneous acceptance (Mahendra and Awadhesh, 2010). This is a
factor, which may affect efficiency in any labor operation.

Ergonomics focuses on human beings and their interaction with machines,

materials, information, procedures and environments used in work and everyday
living (Sanders et al., 1992). The branch of ergonomics that deals with human
variability in size, shape and strength is called anthropometry. Anthropometry
refers to the measurement of human beings. Anthropometry has been considered as
the very basic core of ergonomics in an attempt to resolve the dilemma of „fitting
people to machine‟ (Wang et al, 1999). Bridger (1995), and Chou and Hsiao
(2005) believed anthropometry is a research area in ergonomics dealing with the
measurement of human body dimensions and certain physical characteristics.
Anthropometric data can be used in ergonomics to specify the physical dimensions
of workspaces, workstations, and equipment as well as applied to product design.

Cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) is an evergreen tropical tree from

northeast Brazil, which produces a valuable nut that is widely consumed as snacks
all over the world. Cashew nut ranks third among the edible tree nuts of the world
with a current output of about 700,000 metric tons nut in shell (FAO, 2004). Nuts
may be sold raw or as processed kernels and may be further processed

into value-added products such as fried, roasted or chocolate-coated kernels and

confectioneries, etc.

McNeill and Westby (1999) evaluated a manually operated machine for

chipping cassava. This study demonstrated how agricultural machinery developed
for use in a developing country can be improved by employing a participative and
iterative approach to design,

paying closer attention to human factors. By incorporating ergonomics into the

design process, drudgery associated with the machine was reduced and
productivity, user comfort and satisfaction were increased. Improving the posture
adopted to operate the machine resulted in a significant reduction in physical strain
and incidence of body-part discomfort.
 Kölsch et al. (2003) proposed an objective measure for postural comfort. The
proposed method allows for assessment of postural comfort. They determined the
comfort zone by measuring compensating motion that allows participants to freely
pick a comfortable posture range with the body part under scrutiny. Their method
does not rely on acquisition of subjective data. Instead, it is entirely objective and
allows for participants that are naïve to the study purpose body part under
scrutiny. Mahendra and Awadhesh (2010) carried out the design, development and
ergonomics evaluation of hand operated spade (PHAWRA). This paper addresses
ergonomics factors that can increase the utility of a hand-operated spade or hoe.

Ojolo and Ogunsina (2007) carried out the development of a cashew nut
cracking device. The

device was developed to improve the efficiency of the shelling operation in cashew
nut processing. The performance of the machine is fairly satisfactory but an
improvement on the percentage of whole kernels is achievable with further
modification and testing. They concluded that a device of this nature can be
manufactured in small machine shops in the developing countries for small
entrepreneurs and village level applications.

Further research is carried out to evaluate the machine base on ergonomic

considerations and to improve the design of the machine for better performance
and user acceptance. The need to determine a suitable user and machine interface
leads us to ergonomic evaluation of the cashew nut cracking device.
 CHAPTER III

3.MATERIAL AND COMPONENTS

The machine designed is motorized. During operation, it cracks cashew nuts by impact
when the nuts are hurled toward a fixed wall by an impeller which is driven by the
electric motor. The fully assembled machine is shown in Figure 1(a) and (b).
Preliminary tests were first carried out to determine the moisture content of the
cashew nut shell and kernel. Also, impact load tests were carried out to determine the
fracture characteristics of the nuts.
2.1 Preliminary tests
2.1.1 Moisture content tests. Before the cashew nuts were subjected to the impact load
tests, the moisture contents of the nuts were determined using the oven method. The
procedure used in determining the moisture content is:
. Two samples, each of shell and kernel from a roasted cashew nut, were ground to

almost fine flour individually.

. The initial weight of each sample was determined.

. The samples (each in a can) were placed in an oven and dried at a temperature of

130-1358C for 1 h.
. The samples were removed from the oven and then cooled at room temperature

in a dessicator.
. The final weights of the samples were determined.

. The test was repeated each for four other pair of samples of shell and kernel from

roasted cashew nuts.

COMPONENTS
FRAME
This is made of mild steel material. The whole parts are mounted on this frame structure with the
suitable arrangement. Frame is done with box-pipe and L-angles which has a length of 122cm,
31cm width and 107cm height.
BOX-PIPE
Frame is made out of Box-pipe for desired shape and size. This pipe is done by cutting and
grinding. To make a hole drilling is also done, stand of height 107cm is made by box-pipe or
square pipe. Guide hole according to cashew sizing is made by box pipe. Material for box pipe is
mild steel.
DC MOTOR
An electric motor is a machine which converts electrical energy to mechanical energy. Its action
is based on the principle that when a current- carrying conductor is placed in a magnetic field, it
experiences a magnetic force whose direction is given by Fleming’s left hand rule.
Here, we have used 775 motor which delivers 16000rpm at 24v, 5amp for vacuum that holds the
cashew for further operation. A 7000rpm motor is also used running sieving net which rotates at
5000rpm at 12v, 555 motor is used to drive a shaft for cashew collector which runs at 60rpm in
12v.
SHEET
Sheet metal is metal formed by an industrial process into thin, flat pieces. Sheet metal is one of
the fundamental forms used in metal working, and it can be cut and bent into a variety of shapes.
Most of our machine part is made by sheet metal like basin, cashew collector, sieving net, box
pipe guides. This sheet metal is welded and drilled for our desired shape and sizing.
WOOD
Wood is designed for tangential sliding of cashew for proper positioning in the groove. This is
placed after box guide ways that is in between main table and box guide ways. MDF material is
used here because it is light weight and can be moved easily, this wood can be easily cut out of
our desired shape.
NET
Sieving roller net, vibrating net are introduced in this machine. This net is made of steel and can
be bended easily.
BEARING, BELT & PULLEY
Ball bearings are used widely in instruments and machines in order to minimize friction and
power loss. This technology was brought to its present state of perfection only after a long period
of research and development. The benefits of such specialized research can be obtained when it
is possible to use a standardized bearing of the proper size and type.
CASHEW NUT COLLECTOR
Cashew nut collector is fixed on the support of a frame structure made of mild steel. This rotary
motion is driven by a 10rpm with 10kN/cm torque in which small amount of cashew is carried to
the sieving part. A 6mm shaft diameter and a 15mm of shaft length drive the cashew collector in
rotary motion.
SIEVING ROLLER NET
Sieving roller has a rotary movement which is driven belt pulley mechanism. This roller is
attached with a 500rpm gear motor with a 10kN/cm torque which can be adjusted. Here the
mechanism is rotary motion that is sieving roller is driven by a motor with specified belt and
pulley so that we can reduce the speed of this roller and less wear to the motor gears. Sieving
roller net which has a total length of 90cm is mounted on the main frame. According to the
cashew grading and size difference this roller net has different sizing holes provided this net can
support a load of 8-10kg of cashews. A bearing is provided onto the sieving roller net for smooth
running and performance this bearing is slightly fitted on the frame.
GUIDE
At first we planned a v-shaped guide for our machine then due to technical problems and matter
of sizing we have changed the plan to a box guide so that the cashew can fall easily in to the
guide ways. This guide is made of box pip mild steel which is made out of desired shape and
size. Here the mechanism is when the cashew falls on the path, the guide provided arrange the
cashew properly so that cutting stage will be easier.
AXIAL SLIDING TABLE
Here the mechanism is axial sliding of a sliding table is done. This is for the action of
cashew proper arrangement on the table. The table moves in an axial position, when the cashew
is brought to the slider table with a gap made for the next coming cashew this table is adjusted
and bring the cashew in the horizontal position. Then the lower table slides to fit the cashew in
the position. This axial and sliding table is driven by a motor.

CUTTING BLADE
Here, the cutting blade is done with crank mechanism as shown in the fig. 6.2.5. A crank is
an arm attached at right angles to a rotating shaft by which reciprocating motion is imparted to or
received from the shaft. It is used to convert circular motion into reciprocating motion, or vice
versa. The arm may be a bent portion of the shaft, or a separate arm or disk attached to it.
Attached to the end of the crank by a pivot is a rod, usually called a connecting rod. The end of
the rod attached to the crank moves in a circular motion, while the other end is usually
constrained to move in a linear sliding motion. The term often refers to a human-powered crank
which is used to manually turn an axle, as in a bicycle crank set or a brace and bit drill. In this
case a person's arm or leg serves as the connecting rod, applying reciprocating force to the crank.
There is usually a bar perpendicular to the other end of the arm, often with a freely rotatable
handle or pedal attached. This can be driven with a motor so that cutting process will be easier at
each blade’s. Cutting blade made like a Y-shaped so that cutting process will be easier at a time.
This cutting mechanism is driven by a 220v motor, this motor is also a gear motor which has a
single action and crank mechanism is also used.

.
Design and calculation :

The design of scrapper: The force required to crack cashew nut shells are provided by scrapper as an
impact load. Therefore considering no conservation of kinetic energy, the velocity of impact is
calculated, because nuts are cracked plastically.

Impact Energy = Kinetic Energy Sharma and Aggarwal (2006):

Impact Energy = mv2 2 𝐉
Where, m is the mass of cashew nut, v is the velocity of scrapper.
Considering average weight of cashew nut is 2.4g:
Impact energy = 0.0012v2 J
Assuming that the colliding force of the nut with the shelling wall is entirely plastic, then:

Impact Energy = Work of deformation

Sharma and Aggarwal (2006) where:

Work of deformation = (0.5 F) x e J Where,
F is the applied force and e is the deformation. Work of deformation thus is given as:

Work of deformation= P x e J Where, P is the load applied in impact and is equal to the impact load
required to shelling the nut (Sharma and Aggarwal, 2006).
The impact load of 142 N, and the maximum deformation of the nut and determined to be 12.58 mm
(semi-automatic cashew nut shelling method).
Therefore, Work of deformation = 1.78 J Equating the kinetic energy gives:
Velocity of the scrapper = 38.51 ms-1
The velocity of shelling scrapper can be determined if the deformation is recorded and tested for a given
load. The calculation of scrapper velocity will be helpful while selecting motor in such a way that the
speed of scrapper can be determined as it is being driven by a motor through Inverse Slider-Crank
Mechanism.

Testing:
The main parameter involves the size and configuration of oscillator and scrapper unit of the machine; it
was designed to allow only one cashew at a time to accomplish efficient cracking. The mechanism used
for the machine was supposed to be compact as well as reliable. The moving components such as
Motor, Gearbox, Couplers, Oscillator, and Feeder were decided to proceed to sort out this problem. Two
mechanisms were found to be convenient for transmitting motion from motor to scrapper unit is as
follows, a. Scotch Yoke Mechanism b. Inverse Slider Crank Mechanism If the orientation of the machine
was made to be in a vertical direction, then this makes the gear box to be placed in horizontal position.
Thus, the Scotch Yoke mechanism was rejected due to its incapability, to function under the influence of
gravity. Thus, inverse slider crank mechanism was selected to actuate the oscillator unit. The shelling
unit was tested to regulate the shelling efficiency of the machine.