Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Abstract:
In order to bridge the gap between the traditional method of slicing plantain and the sophisticated imported slicers which is costly and unaffordable to common people, a mechanized plantain slicer which cost just Thirty Five thousand, Five hundred Naira (#35,500:00) was designed and fabricated using locally available materials. The slicer has the capacity of accommodating 30 pieces of plantain of average length of 260mm, weight of 0.3kg and diameter of 65mm. In evaluating the existing method of slicing plantain (knife and plantain slicer) with fabricated mechanized plantain slicer, it was discovered that it's of better performance with operating capacity of 129 plantain slices per minute with 90.40% efficiency when the plantains are arranged in horizontal position against existing method of slicing plantain (knife and plantain slicer) Which is of 56.60% and 83.60% efficiency with 13 and 21 plantain slices respectively. The machine also has average efficiency of 93.20% with operating capacity of 458 plantain slices per minute when the plantains are arranged in vertical position as compared to the other two existing method with 65.80% and 87.20% efficiency and operating capacity of 56 and 81 plantain slices per minutes respectively. The results show that the machine is able to produce a uniform thickness of plantain chips when the plantains are rearranged in both horizontally and vertically in a hygienic, more convenient and time saving way than existing traditional method of slicing plantain

Keywords: mechanized, uniform thickness, horizontal, vertical, plantain slicer

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