International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (IJTSRD)

Volume 7 Issue 4, July-August 2023 Available Online: www.ijtsrd.com e-ISSN: 2456 – 6470

Design and Construction of Rice De-Stoning Machine

A. E. Ilechukwu1, S. E. Abonyi2, A. E. Chinweze1
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra, Nigeria
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra, Nigeria
Corresponding Author Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT How to cite this paper: A. E. Ilechukwu

A rice de-stoning machine was designed, fabricated and evaluated for | S. E. Abonyi | A. E. Chinweze "Design
performance. The de-stoning machine will utilize vibrating motion to and Construction of Rice De-Stoning
further separate the rice grains from the impurities. The vibration Machine" Published
in International
causes the rice grains to move in a specific direction, while the
Journal of Trend in
heavier impurities remain stationary. Mild steel was used in the
Scientific Research
construction of the machine. The machine is driven by a 2Hp electric and Development
motor with 1103W required power. Standard equations were used to (ijtsrd), ISSN:
determine the dimension of the pass and optimization of machine 2456-6470, IJTSRD58593
parameters such as air flow rate and vibration frequency. The Volume-7 | Issue-4,
effectiveness of the de-stoning machine will be evaluated by testing August 2023, pp.62-68, URL:
its performance with different masses of rice samples and impurities. www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd58593.pdf
The machine has a capacity of 436.16Kg/hr and an efficiency of
90.03%. Copyright © 2023 by author (s) and
International Journal of Trend in
KEYWORDS: De-Stoning, Vibration system, Sieve. Separator Scientific Research and Development
Journal. This is an
Open Access article
distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)

1. INTRODUCTION
Rice (Oryza sativa) is a popular tropical cereal insufficient methods. The greater part of stones in
considered to be an important food item. It is grown Nigerian rice is introduced during threshing,
in temperate zones like Asia, North America, and the parboiling, drying, milling/de-husking and
southern part of Europe. Rice has been part of the winnowing.
staple diet in eastern countries for thousands of years. Many investigators have designed and constructed
Asian countries were the world's largest producers of
machines for the removal of stones and other
rice in 2002. Many rice-importing countries include impurities from processed rice to meet consumers'
Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia
demand for a clean product. This has contributed to
and Indonesia. Some rice-importing countries buy
many technological advancements and methods of
rice when drought, floods or any other condition
removing impurities from rice.
reduces the yield of their rice crop but Nigeria
imports rice regularly. Nigeria is currently the largest Okunola AA, Igbeka JC, Arisoyin AG [2015]
rice importer in the world. Nigeria imported rice to produced a cereal purifier that is especially suitable
the tune of 1.8 million dollars alone in 2002, and 1.3 for use in processed rice cleaning impurities.
trillion on rice importation in 2007. The importation Henderson SM, Perry RL [1976] developed a
of rice as a staple food in Nigeria has risen gravity-based and floating separator. However, the
dramatically in the last four decades. Reasonable difficulty of using a separator in rice cleaning is that
quantities of rice are produced yearly from different adequate drying is necessary after separating and
fields in Nigeria, but many Nigerians preferred there is the likelihood of storage growth of mold or
imported rice. This is partly attributed to the fact that fungi.
about 80% of rice produced locally in Nigeria Simonyan KS, Emordi IS, Adama JC [2012]
contains stones. This is because most of the rice developed a locally produced rice de-stoning
produced locally is processed manually or with machine operating on mechanical principles of

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
Reciprocating and vibrating sieves. The machine was used was a 20 gauge steel plate and the shape of the
tested for efficiency in rice separation, efficiency in hopper is a frustum of a pyramid.
stone separation, degree of impurity after separation Base area A = l × b (1)
and loss in the tray. The result for rice separation
efficiency, stone separation efficiency, tray loss and The volume of hopper V = × A × h (2)
impurity after separation showed an average of
74.2%, 70%, 16% and 25.8%. The developed Where, A = base area, h= height.
machine has the promise to solve the stone infestation 2.3.2. Design of Sieve A
problem normally experienced in rice produced Taking into consideration the physical properties of
locally. rice grain in order to design the sieve at the first stage
Ismail SO, Ojolo SJ, Orisaleye JI, Okufo OS [2013] of the separation, Figure 1 shows the dimension of the
designed a rice destoning machine that has the merits average rice grain and Figure 2 is the arrangement of
of easy operation and convenience but cannot the holes that make up the sieve with the dimension.
separate stones with relatively the size of the rice. The dimension of the sieve can be determined by
using the table below, considering the maximum
Usman M, Balogun AL, Oyebanre OD developed a length and width of rice grain, the following
rice destoning machine which had an excellent parameters can be determined.
function in operation but required technical know-
how and complex mechanisms
This machine solves the problems of technical
problems by making use of the simplest possible
method and making sure there is a proper selection of
sieve size for any variety of rice to be destined.
2. Materials and method
2.1. Machine description
The destoning machine consists of the following main Figure 1: Rice dimension (average size)
features; feed hopper shaker mechanism transmission
unit, vibrating sieves and discharge unit (see Figure
4)
2.2. Material selection
The particular conditions under which the various
parts of the rice de-stoning machine are subjected to
makes it necessary to select adequate materials for the
fabrication based on functionality, durability, and
ability to withstand vibration In chosen the material,
their physical properties and behaviour are considered
such that when subjected to the machine running
condition should be able to withstand the service
condition.
In this design, the strength of the materials,
serviceability of parts and availability were put into
consideration. This led to the selection of mild steel
angle bar (40 × 40mm for the frame, mild steel angle
bar (25 x 25mm) for the working decks and gauge
24mm mild steel sheets for the protective guards and
hopper and an electric motor of 1440rpm. Also, Figure 2: Dimension of sieve A
painting of the machine was carried out for aesthetic e1=2.8 e2=8.4 d=6mm (distance between the
aspects and to prevent rusting of parts. openings)
2.3. Design Analysis 2.3.3. Design of Sieve B
2.3.1. Design of feed Hopper Sieve B can be designed such that the openings are
The cross-sectional area and volume of the feed smaller than the size of the minimum width of rice.
hopper were estimated to allow feeding of the So, the opening e2 was given a dimension of 2.0mm
admixture into the hopper for destoning. The material and the distance d between the openings is 3mm.

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
2.3.4. Weight of Shafts T= (10)
A. Upper shaft (For Sieve A)
Shaft material is mild steel with a density of 7.83 Where; P is the power required to run the shaft 2kW,
× kg/m N is the output speed of the transmission shaft
1440rpm
Area A = /4 (3)
T= = 13.26 Nm/13.26 Nmm
D = 25 mm, A = 490.94 m
Volume of shaft V = A x L (4) T=

L = 500 mm, A = 490.94 m (τ =56Mpa for shafts without allowance for keyways
according to Gupta and Khurmi 2005)
Mass of shaft m = p x V (5)
2.3.6. Belt and pulley design
Where, p = density of shaft material = 7.83 X
The belt and pulley were designed following Fenner
kg/m
industrial Belt Drives manual [7];
V = volume of shaft = 2.45 X Motor power: 2hp= 1.5kw Motor speed: 1440 rpm
Weight of shaft W = m x g (6) Speed ratio: 1:4
B. Lower Shaft (For Sieve B) Belt type: V- belt (A belt section)
A = ᴨ /4 (3) Service Factor = 1.0 (the machine will run for less
D = 12mm, A = 113mm than 10 hours per day)
Volume of shaft V = Ax L (4) Belt designed power= 1.0 x 1.5kW =1.5kw
L = 400 mm, A = 113 Section: 80mm and One Step Pulley
Mass m = p x V (5) Driven Speed: At 1:4 speeds gives 360 rpm
obtainable with the stock pulleys.
Weight W = m x g (6)
Pulley Diameter: the diameter of the small pulley
2.3.5. Determination of shaft diameter (driver) and large pulley (driven) are:
For a solid shaft made from malleable material having
no axial loading, the shaft diameter is obtained from d= 100mm D= 400m
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Centre Distance: is found using the formula
(ASME) code equation according to Khurmi and
Gupta [21] and presented in the equation below. C=2x (11)

(7) C= 447.2mm
A. Correction factor = 0.89
(Where; T is the twisting moment, J is the Polar
moment of inertia, τ is torsional shear stress and r is B. Number of belts ´= =
the distance from the neutral axis)
T= (8)
One belt will supply 1.68 kW power which is greater
(8) Was simplified into than the corrected designed power (1.5kw); hence a
single belt will be sufficient for the shaker mechanism
T= (9)
The parameters used in the design is shown in table ,
To determine the twisting moment transfer by the while figure 3 shows an isometric drawing of sieve
shaft the equation becomes rice de-stoner after fabrication.
Table 1 Mathematical Design Result
Parameters Symbol Quantity Unit
Volume of hopper 25,523 c
Diameter of sieve A 6 mm
Diameter of Sieve B 2 mm
Area of upper shaft 490.94
Volume of upper shaft 2.45

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
Mass of upper shaft 192 Kg
Weight of upper shaft 1885.5 N
Area of lower shaft 113
Volume of lower shaft 4.5
Mass of lower shaft 3539 Kg
Weight of lower shaft 341717.5 N

Figure 3: Assembled isometric drawing of sieve rice de-stoner

2.4. Principle of operation
The top sieve allows rice and smaller impurities to pass through while larger impurities are retained, the bottom
sieve retains rice grains while impurities smaller than rice pass through to a collection tray. The sieve box is
attached to a shaker mechanism that assured both horizontal and vertical movement. The structural frame forms
the mounting support of all other units. The setup also consists of an electric motor which provides vibratory
motion.
3. Results and discussion
In the de-stoning process using a rice de-stoner, certain parameters ought to be taken into consideration such as
the size of impurities, the weight of impurities grain size and all these would serve to determine the dimension of
the sieve to be applied for the de-stoning process.
The results of the tests are shown in the tables below. The results of the mixture of rice and stones being
separated by the machine and weighed separately. Table 2 shows the results of test analysis.
Table 2: Result of Test Analysis
Clean Time Clean Grain Time
S/ Clean Stones Feed Resid
sample taken Outlet (kg) taken Residu
N rice sample materials ue
after 1st (min) 1st after 2nd (min)2nd e (kg)
o (kg) (kg) (kg) (kg)
stage stage stage stage
1 1.0 0.10 1.1 1.01 0.17 0.08 1.0 0.24 0.01
2 1.5 0.15 1.65 1.51 0.20 0.14 1.49 0.27 0.01
3 2.0 0.2 2.20 2.0 0.22 0.19 1.99 0.31 0.015
4 3 0.3 3.30 3.0 0.26 0.29 2.9 0.36 0.015
5 3.5 0.35 3.85 3.52 0.30 0.33 3.5 0.41 0.015
Therefore, de-stoning efficiency is taken as
ʃ= (12)

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
Hence from Table 1 above,
=

Average efficiency = (13)

= 90.03%.
And, the capacity of the machine per hour is
C=
(14)
=275 kg/hr
= 366.6 kg/hr
= 425.8kg/hr
= 550kg/hr
= 563.4kg/hr
The average capacity of the machine is
C= = 436.16kg/h

Figure 4: Graph of rice efficiency against the time taken

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 International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development @ www.ijtsrd.com eISSN: 2456-6470
The curve in figure 4, represents the performance of the destoning machine in terms of its ability to separate
stones from rice grains. The x-axis of the curve represents the input flow rate per unit of time, while the y-axis
represents the efficiency of destoning, often measured as the percentage of stones removed. The curve shows
how the machine's efficiency varies with different input flow rates. A steeper slope indicates higher efficiency,
meaning more stones are removed per unit of time. Figure 5 shows the fabricated rice destoning machine.

Figure 5: Fabricated Rice De-Stoning Machine

Conclusion sieve design of rice purifier using response
The design and fabrication of a rice de-stoning surface methodology. Agricultural Engineering
machine were successfully carried out by this work International: CIGR Journal, 21(1), 194-202.
with an efficiency of 90.03% attained. The machine
[2] Ali, M., & Hasan, M. (2019). Performance
was tested and found capable of de-stoning rice. Due
evaluation of different types of rice milling
to the low cost of fabrication, the machine can be
machines in Bangladesh. International Journal
adopted by small-scale producers. Also shown in
of Advanced Research in Engineering and
Figure 4 is the graphical relationship between the
Technology (IJARET), 10(2), 387-396
performance parameters and the time taken.
[3] Anderson J. S. and Bratos – Anderson M.
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