Department of Agricultural Engineering Technology, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria; Department of Agricultural Engineering, Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria
Ojomo, A.O., Department of Agricultural Engineering Technology, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria; Agbetoye, L.A.S., Department of Agricultural Engineering, Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria; Ologunagba, F.O., Department of Agricultural Engineering Technology, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria
A pelletizing machine for the production of fish feed was designed and fabricated. It consists of a hopper, barrel which houses the screw conveyor (auger), the cutting knife and the die orifice. Power supply to the machine is from 2 kW, 1420 rpm single phase electric motor. The performance evaluation of the machine was carried out. The main objective was to investigate the effects of moisture contents and the speed of operation on the performance of the machine. It was observed that the pelletizing efficiency, throughput capacity and the percentage recovery of the machine increased with increase in moisture content and the speed of the machine. The machine showed higher throughput capacity of 19.7 kg/h with maximum pelletizing efficiency of 87.6%. Moisture content constituted a greater portion of variability in efficiency than speed. A unit increase in moisture content resulted in an increase of about 20% in pelletizing efficiency whereas a corresponding unit increase in speed only increased the pelletizing efficiency by 3%. The machine does not make use of steam thereby making it easier to operate. The adoption of the pelletizing machine by small and medium scale farmers would go a long way in helping them to produce their own feed with local contents thereby alleviating the problems associated with the sourcing of imported feeds. © 2006-2010 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.