Development of a Portable Hammer Mill for Processing Agricultural Products in Rural Communities

Abstract

In this study, an attempt was made in designing and fabricating a portable milling machine from locally sourced raw materials which can be utilized by low income rural dwellers not connected to the electricity grid to achieve size reduction of grains such as maize, sorghum and other agricultural materials. The machine seeks to improve on some the shortfalls observed in previous designs of existing hammer mills currently in use. The size reduction was achieved with the aid of freely rotating hammers attached to a shaft. The prime mover employed for the machine was petrol engine. Detachable screens with various screen sizes were provided to achieve various particle sizes of milled samples. From the result of the preliminary investigation performed on the machine, it was seen that the machine performed satisfactorily with a maximum efficiency of 92 % and optimum throughput of 18.2 kg/hr.