Abstract

Sunflower production is increasing in Bangladesh, but farmers face problems separating the seeds from the sunflower heads. Sunflowers are traditionally threshed by beating the heads manually with a stick. The goal of this experiment is to design and develop a motor-driven machine that separates the seeds from the sunflower. An orthographic projection was drawn using SolidWorks 2016 software. The sunflower threshing machine was then fabricated according to the drawing in the FMPE Divisional workshop using locally available materials in 2017-18. The developed sunflower threshing machine was modified in 2018-19. The improved model was further modified to reduce the overall dimensions while maintaining the same capacity of the machine. The number of threshing rollers was reduced from 5 to 4. A threshing fan has been added to the improved version to separate the dust from the grains. The capacity of the motorized sunflower thresher was 115 and 304% higher than that of the pedal thresher and manual threshing, respectively. The capacity of the thresher was varied with moisture content. The capacity of the thresher varied from 89 to 125 kg/h at moisture content from 31 to 62% (wb).

Key words: Sunflower thresher, design, capacity, seed separation