Index.htm Thr090.htm

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. It would appear necessary to conduct some tests to check if (as for rice) a human powered threshing mechanism results in significant increase in labor productivity over traditional hand-beating methods.
2. Should these tests prove affirmative, then there could be 3 possible solutions to production of human-powered threshers for sorghum and millets:

• adapt treadle rice threshers by removing wire hoops, fitting wooden beater bars, and fitting a stator board with approximately 10mm clearance from the drum beater bars; also maybe reducing the threshing speed by approximately 40% by gearing or by operator.

• adapt parts of or a complete small engine powered thresher of suitable design to be powered by one or several persons, utilising a treadle or pedal or rowing system or some other kind of human mechanical drive.

• Design a machine from basics

1. Should it prove convenient, the utility and utilisation of such a thresher could be improved by the incorporation or attachment of a hammer mill or a roller-bearing type plate mill for grain milling. Or a general purpose drive which could power devices such as winnowers, maize shellers, water pumps etc..

COURSE OF ACTION

Some energy comparison tests were conducted at Morogoro, and are presented below.

It was decided to design a machine from basics, and the results of that are contained in the main body of this report below. However options (1) and (2) within Recommendation (2) above may still be valid in some circumstances.