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CIAE Power cum Manual Operated Fruit and Vegetable Grader

The developed fruit cum vegetable grader can be used for grading of different spherical fruits and vegetables having an equivalent diameter of 35 mm to 120 mm. The main components of the grader are feeding unit, elevator unit, and grading system. The feeding unit is of pentagonal plan view with a capacity of holding 100 kg of fruits and vegetables. The outlet of this unit is fitted with a rubber flap to ensure safe placement of the produce on the elevator flaps. The elevator uniformly feeds the produce to the grading unit through a sloppy platform meant to eliminate the impact force. The grading system consists of two sets of rollers each set having two round pipes with reducing diameters along the forward movements resulting in increasing the gap between the rollers. In each set, the rollers rotate in opposite direction giving a slight lift to the produce being graded. The distance between the rollers and the bottom of trays is 125 mm thereby eliminating the chance of any impact damage to the produce. The grader has been designed to meet the requirements of small as well as large industries because of its low cost (55-60 % cost reduction), low energy requirement (40% reduction), high efficiency (95%) in comparison to available graders and option of upgrading its capacity (up to 8 t/h). This development is highly beneficial for industrial applications. The equipment can be used to separate round or nearly round fruits and vegetables into five grades without causing any damage to the produce for marketing uniform high-quality produce. The device has the inbuilt system to operate manually as well as with an electric motor without any separate adjustments/setting for the change of power source. The machine is suitable for grading of different commodities such as apple, guava, mango, citrus, tomato, onion, potato, etc with an overall grading efficiency of 95%. The suitability of the grader for both fruits and vegetable is due to the mechanism of rollers moving in opposite direction thereby giving a slight lift to the produce being graded, resulting to placing of the commodity in between the rollers in its natural shapes. The capacity of the grader is 2t/h, which can be enhanced by adding sets of the roller in the grading system. The power consumption of the grader is 0.283 kW/t only when operated by an electric motor. The device is of low cost considering its capacity, ease of dissembling and assembling, simple in manufacturing and operations.