Design and Development of a Grass Grinding Machine

Year 2019, Volume: 1 Issue: 2, 84 - 92, 16.12.2019

Godspower Ojariafe , Ketra Abumere

Abstract

The search for energy alternatives involving
locally available and renewable resources is one of the main concerns of
governments, scientists and business people worldwide. This paper focuses on
the design and fabrication of a grass grinding machine to facilitate grass
grinding as an aid to sustainable energy from biomass in Nigeria. The work
further focuses on grinding of elephant grass for generation of energy due to
its availability and alternative means of energy generation to fuelwood. The
elephants grass was Oven heated to 250^oC, to ensure dryness, the
materials for the fabricated machine was sourced locally. They include a 1hp
motor, a medium carbon steel Shaft, a SPA rubber melt, a mild Steel bearing, a
255mm by 255mm mild Steel hopper at the top and 125mm by 125mm at the bottom
with a thickness of 2mm, a mild steel casing, a mild steel mesh of 4mm and cast
iron pulleys. The dried grass is fed into the hopper and the tilted shaft
within the casing carries out the grinding and sends it to the mesh which then
sieves the ground particle into the receiver for collection. Dried Grass of
mass 510.1kg was fed into the hopper and in three minutes the grass was
pulverized to a fine particle of mass 43kg. The ground elephant grass can
further be converted into pellets and briquettes, which can be used as heating
fuel to provide an alternative to wood, biogas etc.

Keywords

energy alternatives; grass grinding machine; generation of energy.

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