Development of Mechanical Yam Vibrator with Adjustable Frequency and Amplitude at Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun Nigeria

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Overtime weight loss and sprouting of yam tubers during storage had been creating issues among farmers and storage Engineers. Interaction of energy with matter has tendency of bringing change in the matter. To establish the effect of mechanical vibration on the physical properties of yam tubers and sprouts; this study therefore developed mechanical yam vibrator with adjustable frequency and amplitude at Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun Nigeria. A mechanical yam vibrator having adjustable frequencies and amplitudes was developed with vibrating chamber of capacity size of 670 mm × 570 mm × 180 mm which can contain four tubers of yam at a time. Preliminary test was conducted on the developed mechanical yam vibrator to determine the variation of the displacement of the developed mechanical vibrator using a vibrometer. The preliminary test conducted indicates that the maximum displacement of the developed mechanical yam vibrator using a cam size of 5 mm, 10 and 20 mm are 4.66 mm, 9.09 mm and 17.30 mm respectively at different levels of frequencies (low frequency (1 – 5 Hz), medium frequency (60 – 100 Hz) and high frequency (150 – 200 Hz). This proved that the developed mechanical yam vibration provide variation in displacement and frequency which would help in generating different levels of displacement and frequency for the yam tubers to be vibrated.

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