DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF MULTI- PORPOSE HAMMER MILLING MACHINE FOR SMALL SCALE OPERATION

This project aims to design, fabricate and tested multi-purpose hammer milling machine for small scale operations. The hammer mill was built using materials that could be found locally to grind grain particles like millet, maize, guinea corn, and other coarse materials like beans, yam, and cassava tubers into small enough pieces to fit through the holes in the cylindrical sieve that sits underneath the hammer assembly. The objective of this project work is to fabricate a cost-effective hammer milling machine that can be used for small scale milling operation, to minimize the time frame for milling operation process, and also to meet the monetary need of the villagers and local farmers. The major components of the new hammer mill are Inlet tray, Throat, Rotor, crushing chamber, Hammer mill body, Hammers/Beaters, Screen, Bearings, Discharge, Table or stand, Mechanical drive, Pulleys. The preliminary tests carried out on the new hammer mill confirm that this mill is capable of performing the same function as that of the huge hammer mills used in the industries, as well as the same function as the conventional hammer mill which usually produce coarse, medium and fine particles, thus quality control and monitoring is needed. the crushing efficiency of the machine was found to be 94% and 84% for dry maize and dry soyabeans, respectively. It is clear from the crushing capacity and efficiency above that the performance of the machine is satisfactorily than that of manual test with efficiency of 52% and 64% of dry maize and soyabeans. The fabricated hammer mill is a promising design that can promote the Nigerian local content initiative as well as enhance food production, revenue generation and job creation in rural and urban areas of the country