Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Simolowo, O.E., Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria; Adeniji, O.O., Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
In Nigeria, and many African countries, the domestic and medium-scale processing of various food slurry such as those for corn, sorghum, soya beans and millet have been done manually over the years with little or no technological development. These manual processes are associated with obvious constraints such as excessive length of time, tedium and boredom, coupled with inherent unhygienic conditions surrounding these processes. In this work, a vibration machine for the sieving of a staple food and primary infant diet in many countries in Africa popularly known as "Pap," has been conceptualized and fabricated. Experimental Performance tests were carried out using a newly designed machine and the results were compared with the conventional or manual sieving processes. Results showed that the newly designed vibration sieving machine was more efficient than the manual sieving process. It had an average filtration rate of 1.6 × 10 -5 m 3/s, against 8.68×10 -6 m 3/s for the manual method, thereby resulting in an 82% improvement over the manual sieving process. The employment of the machine also gave 50% and 56% reductions in the filtration time and volume of water used, respectively. In this work, presents a remarkable contribution to the processing of various food slurries in Nigeria and Africa as a whole by applying the principles of vibration to the design of new sieving equipment.