Design and simulation analysis of cowpea dehulling Machine

Abstract

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is one of the common food source in rural and urban homes in Nigeria, as it is cheap and it has significant constituent of protein, minerals and vitamins[1].This crop is mainly cultivated in west and Central Africa with an annual production of 3 millions tons[2].In Nigeria, cowpea are eaten in various forms; as porridge along with fried or boiled yam or plantain, Dehulled cowpea is necessary in the preparation of some Africa food process (fried beans,akara, boiled moi moi).In spite of the widespread use of this staple food among Nigerians[3],dehulling of cowpea has been identified as the major problem culminating against the utilization and processing of cowpea into a more versatile food product that eliminates flatulence and repulsive odour effects. The existing method such as the traditional method of soaking in water and hand rasping to remove the seed coats is time consuming, tedious and discourages large scale processing even though it gives better efficiency. Also, the machine method employing either the wet or dry milling, peeling or polishing machines has a lot of setbacks in terms of tedious labour during pre- treatment, time wastage, complexity of machines, cost of operation and acquisition and their inefficiency. The developments of agriculture in developing countries of the world depend on the part played by modern agricultural machinery and equipment. Many localcowpea dehulling machine have been developed but reliable information and performance data on them are limited.