Design and construction of a multipurpose air screen grain cleaner

Abstract

An air screen grain cleaning machine was designed and fabricated. The machine consists of the upper, the frame, the sieving unit, the blower, the outlet and the power unit. The machine was tested with a variable speed electric motor using three different grains (maize, soybean and melon) at three difference speed of 650rpm, 700rpm and 750rpm respectively. The results show that increase in the machine speed increases the machine capacity but reduces time of operation the efficient of the machine. The least efficiency of the machine was recorded to be 88% when maize was fed at 750rpm and joint highest efficiency of 94% at 650rpm when soybeans and melon were fed.