A split plot design with five replications and Duncan&rsquos multiple range test was used for statistical analysis. Three varieties of paddy and two types of paddy husker were selected as main plot and sub plot, respectively. Parameters such as percentage of paddy, brown rice, and rice breakage were measured by sampling from the outlet of husker, paddy separator, and polisher in each treatment. Capacity and power requirement of paddy separators were measured and compared as well. The method of partial budgeting was used for economic comparison of two types of paddy separator.

The conventional way to husk rice is to pass it between two rubber rollers that are rotating with a surface speed differential. The resulting normal pressure and shear stress causes the husk to be peeled away from the kernel. The process is suited to high-rice flow rates, but is energy intensive and can result in considerable wear to the surfaces of the rollers. The operating parameters for machines of this design are usually determined and set empirically. In this article, some experiments and calculations had been carried out in order to explore the mechanisms involved in husking rice grains using this method. A simple sliding friction rig with load cell and high-speed camera was used to observe the mechanisms that occur during husking. The husking performance of different rubbers was compared for changes in the applied normal load. It was found that grains rotate between the rubber counterfaces on initial motion before being husked. In addition, harder rubbers were found to husk a higher proportion of entrained grains at lower applied normal load.

In a rice mill some of the operations are done manually namely, cleaning, sun drying, feeding paddy to the bucket elevators, weighing and packaging, etc. So the man-hours are also included in energy accounting. Water is used for soaking and steam generation. Electricity is the main energy source for these rice mills and is imported form the state electricity board grids. Electricity is used to run motors, pumps, blowers, conveyors, fans, lights, etc. The variations in the consumption rate of energy through the use of utilities during processing must also accounted for final cost of the finished product. The paddy milling consumes significant quantity of fuels and electricity. The major energy consuming equipments in the rice milling units are; boilers and steam distribution, blowers, pumps, conveyers, elevators, motors, transmission systems, weighing, etc. Though, wide variety of technologies has been evolved for efficient use of energy for various equipments of rice mills, so far, only a few have improved their energy efficiency levels. Most of the rice mills use old and locally available technologies and are also completely dependent on locally available technical personnel.

Separation of paddy and rice on an oscillating type separator takes place due to difference in specific gravity and surface characteristics of paddy and rice. When a mixture of paddy and rice falls on a separator having a serrated surface and is oscillated at the appropriate frequency, rice settles down under the layer of paddy. If the inclination of deck exceeds the angle of friction between the rice and paddy, the paddy moves down the deck on top of the layer of rice. This angle of inclination exceeds the angle of rolling friction between the paddy and the material of the deck and the paddy after having been separated from the layer of rice rolls down on the deck surface. Serrations provided on the deck surface are so shaped that they prevent the rice from sliding down. The values of amplitude of frequency of deck oscillation are such that rice can slide up the deck surface in successive steps per cycle of deck motion and finally reach the rice outlet where the grains escape. The equations of motion of rice on a deck surface have been analysed and the conveying velocity computed. The observed and computed velocities have been found to be in reasonable agreement with each other.

We are developing an intelligent automatic control system (ACS) based on machine vision and fuzzy logic techniques to control the performance of rice whitener. The developed ACS consisted of two main parts, namely hardware (including sampling unit, kernel singulation unit, image capturing unit, processor (computer), discharge pressure control unit and data acquisition unit), and software (including image processing, fuzzy inference and central control units). Two important qualitative indices, degree of milling and percentage of broken kernels, were considered as input variables and the level of pressure on the discharge section of the whitening machine was selected as the output variable in the fuzzy inference unit.

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