Design, fabrication and determination of optimum working conditions of a pneumatic peanuts bagging system

As with many industrial agricultural crops, there is no problem in terms of mechanization in the cultivation and harvesting of peanuts. However, some of the post-harvest processes of peanuts (especially bagging) still require an intense amount of human workforce. There are some basic problems with peanut bagging. It is getting more and more difficult to find labor for such heavy work. There is a difficult and tiring work condition in terms of occupational health due to bending and a dusty environment. The shovel or tin box used in the bagging breaks the peanut shell and results in losses. The purpose of this study was to make the bagging work more comfortable, healthy and economical by mechanizing it to prevent peanut producers from adverse conditions. For this reason, a Prototype Pneumatic Peanut Bagging Machine powered by tractor PTO shaft was designed and fabricated, which conveys peanut pods on the ground using aspirated air and fill the product into with bags. In order to determine the optimum working conditions of the fabricated bagging machine, peanut bagging tests were carried out using three different hose diameters (100, 120 and 160 mm) and three different air speeds (23, 25 and 27 m s-1). Also, machine work capacity, fuel consumption and physical damages on product were identified. Furthermore, the prototype bagging machine and the human labor bagging method with simple hand tools were compared with each other by in terms of cost analysis. When the hose diameters used in the prototype machine were evaluated in terms of work capacity, it was seen that the hose with a diameter of 160 mm gave the highest work capacity. It is determined that the hose with 160 mm diameter used in the prototype machine provided the lowest fuel consumption. No product damage was determined during the trials. As a result of the cost analysis made within the scope of the study, the cost of bagging using human labor costs 700 TL (45 TL t-1), and the prototype bagging machine costs 890 TL (60 TL t-1). It is known that an average of 2.5% loss occurs due to crushing when filling the bags with human labor. In a day of work, 15 tons of products are generally bagged and loaded on truck. In this case, approximately 375 kg of product is lost. The shelled peanut price was approximately 10 TL kg-1 in 2019. The approximate monetary value of the 375 kg lost product is 3,750 TL. This loss should be taken into account when evaluating both bagging methods in terms of costs.