Design of a Forage Chopper Machine

Code No: 836548

₦5,000.00

ABSTRACT

Table of Content

TABLE OF CONTENT
Title Pages
Certification
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Abstract
Table of content
List of figure
List of Table
List of plate
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1    Preamble
1.2    The objective of the project
1.3    Justification
1.4    Scope of the project
1.5    Scope of Study
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1    Row crop forage harvesting
2.2    Cutting of forage
2.3    Gathering of forage
2.4    Conveying of forage
2.5    Header power requirement for Forage harvesting
2.6    Properties of corn stalks
2.6.1    Corn stalk crushing energy
2.6.2    Corn stalk crushing Resistance
2.6.3    Advantage of forage chopper
2.6.4    Disadvantage of forage chopper
CHAPTER THREE: MATERIALS AND METHOD
3.1    Materials Selection
3.2    Description of the machine
3.3    Construction and Principles of Operation of the Machine
3.4    Components of the Machine and its Construction
3.5    Design consideration
3.6    Design Calculations
3.7    Fabrication Procedure and Assembly
3.8    Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation (BEME)
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULT AND DISCUSSION
4.1    Result and Discussion
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1    Conclusion
5.2    Recommendation
Reference
Appendix

        ABSTRACT
In the dry season harvest residue and grasses like maize Stover, sorghum Stover, elephant grass etc. are being used to feed ruminant animal. The crop residue can be fed to the animal directly, as they are collected from the farm or chopped into pieces in such way that it will be palatable for the ruminant animal. The current practice by the small and medium scale livestock farmers to collect and cut the crop residue using machetes, knives, sickle and other crude method is very cumbersome.
   In this work, a motorized forage chopper was developed and tested to chop the forage and other crops residue in the wet and dry condition for silage making. Forage chopper consist of a solid circular shaft, cutting unit, hopper, discharge outlet and frame. It utilize 2.2kw (3hp) electric motor to drive 0.3mm diameter shaft on which the cutting unit is carried and rotate at a constant speed of 1490-rpm via a v-belt pulley drive mechanism.
   The average chopping efficiency for fresh and dry material was 62 and 70% respectively. The average chopping rate for wet and dry material were 0.23 and 0.28kg/min. these value indicate that the machine perform better with dry material than the wet material whereas the average length cut of the material was 20-25mm.This length makes it suitable for the preparation of dry season animal feeds with the chopped crop residues as major components and minerals, and vitamins as constituents. The machine is easy to operate and maintain. This is a remarkable improvement over manual chopping of forage.