Development and testing of solar operated paddy winnower

Abstract

Winnowing is the process of removing foreign material, chaff, from the paddy by the use of air application. The annual production of rice in Chhattisgarh is 6608.83 thousand tonnes. Large number of farmers thresh paddy crop manually or by trampling it under feet of animals thus the cleaning is more difficult. For cleaning, traditional methods such as natural draft of air and small fans are used. The output obtained in this process is 40-45 kg/hr, which is very low and also the process is time consuming. In power operated paddy winnower the energy consumption is high. Keeping this fact in mind this project was undertaken to develop a solar operated paddy winnower. This machine can be used in those areas where electricity is not available or cost of electricity is too high. The size of the developed winnower is 70cm in length, 65 cm in width and 137.5cm in height (including hopper). The performance of the winnower was evaluated in field. The average cleaning efficiency of the winnower was found to be 94-97%.The capacity of the machine 320-367 kg/hr. The cost of developed solar operated paddy winnower is Rs.6280/- and operating cost of the machine was found to be 53.071 Rs/hr.