A Rolling machine with band and its application to industry

SUMMARY A Rolling Machine with Band and Its Application to Industry The tea which is the most widely used drink after water in the world has a very important place in the Turkish economy. Production of the black tea which has the greatest share in total tea production in the world consists of five steps. These steps are withering, rolling, fermentation, drying and classification respectively. All the processes associated with these steps have been treated mechanically by using the machines developed since 19th century. In Turkey, unfortunally researches on black tea producing is not satis factory. In the present time, most of the machines employed in the black tea production are being imported. Developing of a rolling machine, which can work continu ously,economicly and roll tea leaves at well quality and also applicable easly to the black tea production industry, has very much importance for Turkish economy as well as the black tea production industry. This thesis was therefore devoted to developing such kind of rolling machine. Thus, a rolling machine with band, which consists of a cylindrical rolling tambour, a rolling band, band tambours for actuating and tightening, a power source and storage tanks for tea leaves, has been developed and manufactured. In order to make experiments at various number of rotations of tambour, a system to change number of rotations of tambour has been employed. By using this experimental system, rolling tea leaves at various relative cycles has been investigated for various roughness of tambour surface and for different spaces between rolling tambour and band. At first, by testing different rolling surface forms of the tambour, the most suitable rolling surface form was ob tained. After this stage, in order to obtain the most suitable number of cycles the experimental system was worked for vari ous cycles at the cycle rate of 1/3 f 5, Finally, the obtained experimental results were discussed and recommendations were made for further investigations. Key Words: Tea, Tea Production and Manufacturing, Continuous Manufacturing, Machinery of Rolling, Rolling Machine with Band. VII