Design and Development of Coconut Dehusking Machine: A Review

Abstract

Coconut is very important ingredient of Indian food just because of its versatility in use. Extracting the edible part from a
coconut is not so easy task when it comes to process it from its very initial state. To make it possible and easier, we have
manufactured coconut de-husking, cutting and grating machine. Design and manufacturing of coconut de-husking machine
consists of three operations, namely: Peeling of coconut fibers i.e. de-husking of coconut .India is the world’s third largest
producer of coconut after the Philippines and Indonesia. India alone accounts for about 70% of the world production of coir
and coir products. The total output of coir and coir products in India is estimated to be aroundRs.1500.00 core including
exports of Rs.350.00 core. All the parts of coconut orchard such as coconut husk, shell, copra, coconut water are useful.
Coconut husk is used in coir industry, shell as a fuel, copra as food, coconut water as nutritious liquid. There are many farm
equipment’s and tools which are developed for the post harvesting operation of horticultural crops. The dehusking of a
coconut is regarded as the most time-consuming, tiring, and difficult operation to perform and involves much human
drudgery. Many attempts has been done to perform coconut dehusking manually as well as mechanized. Dehusking with
traditional hand tools like machete or a spike depends on the skill of worker and involves training. Nowadays there is
shortage of such skilled. Workers. The mechanized or the power operated machines are developed to eliminate the
drawbacks of manual tools. Such manual tools and machines are developed all over the world and a very few have become
popular, rest got vanished due to their limitations. The reasons for the failure of these tools include unsatisfactory and
incomplete dehusking, breakage of the coconut shell while dehusking, spoilage of useful coir, greater effort needed than
manual methods, etc. This present work aims to design and develop a semiautomatic coconut dehusking machine with
eliminating the abovementioned drawbacks of the existing tools and machines. The machine conceived shall have main parts
like deshuking unit mounted on a frame with electric motor as a power source along with speed reducing unit. The dehusking
unit shall have a pair of cylindrical rollers with tines (cutting pins) on its surface. These rollers will rotate in opposite
direction with different speeds so that the tines will penetrate into the husk and tear it away from the shell. The proper
tearing of husk from shell occurs when the coconut offers good mesh with the tynes and it depends on the depth of insertion
of nut into rollers and profile of tynes. As coconuts varies considerably in size and shape there is a need of adjustment in
distance between pair of rollers for desired depth of in section also the suitable profile of tynes is required for effective
dehusking. These tynes shall be attached to the cylinders with fasteners so that replacement can be easily done.