Development and cost estimation of pedal operated coconut dehusker

Abstract

Coconut production plays an important role in the national economy of India. India produces about 6000 million nuts a year. Copra produced in the country is about 0.35 million tons and India accounts for about 55% of the world trade in coir. Dehusking the coconuts without damaging the useful coir is an art only skilled workers can perform. Generally, coconuts are de-husked manually using a pointed tool or called spike. These methods require skilled and hardworking labour. Attempts made so far in the development of de-husking tool have been only partially successful and not effective in replacing manual methods. The reasons quoted for the failure of this tool include unsatisfactory and incomplete de-husking, breakage of the coconut shell while de-husking, spoilage of useful coir. This project involves design of a women friendly coconut de-husker, which requires less labour and time than the traditional ones. Here the operator can de-husk comfortably by applying pedal. In this project the model was fabricated with proper measurement and cost estimation was also done. The developed model was simple, efficient, requires less time and cost.