FABRICATION OF POTATO SLICING MACHINE
2nd Biennial Conference
Authors
Abstract
Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important food crops in the world. In terms of production,
potato ranks fourth as food crop in Nigeria after cassava, yam and cocoyam. Potato is a cheap source of nutrients,
income and employment to guarantee food security. However, potato is a semi-perishable commodity. Therefore,
it needs processing for both short and long term storages. Hand held slicer being used by local processor of
potato chips is prone to injuring the user through cut from blade during operation, time consuming and laborious.
Also, most of available machines are costly and not made locally. The research work fabricated a portable and
effective slicing machine. The frame was fabricated using angle iron (3mm), the cutting disc (3mm) was made
using a stainless steel connected to a shaft (25mm) supported by bearings. The inlet chutes were made of stainless
pipe (3mm) and discharge chute (1.2mm) made of stainless sheet. The machine is powered by a 1hp electric motor.
The cutting disc carries three blades at 120o . The slicing is carried out by impact and shear action of the cutting
blades. Three slices are produced by one revolution of the cutting disc. The machine has the slicing capacity of
217.3๐๐/โ๐, throughput capacity of 346๐๐/โ๐ and efficiency of 63.4%. This efficiency can be improved upon.
The machine is portable (430 ร 420 ร 780๐๐) and easy to operate by one person. It is not prone to injury like
the hand held manual slicer.
Keywords
Slicer; Chips; Fabrication; Size reduction
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