SUGARCANE BUD EXTRACTOR

PROJECT REPORT

SUBMITTED BY

SRINATH.G

SUNDERAMURTHY.Y

VEERACHOKANATHAN.P

SUGUMAR.P

In partial fulfilment for the award of the degree

Of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING

In

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

EASWARI ENGINEERING COLLEGE, CHENNAI 600025

ANNA UNIVERSITY: CHENNAI 600025

 BOANFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this project report DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF

SUGARCANE BUD EXTRACTOR is the bonafide work of SRINATH.G,

Y.SUNDERAMURTHY, VEERACHOKANATHAN.P, SUGUMAR.P who

carried out the project work under my supervision.

Dr.ANTONY Dr.B.S.MOHANTY

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering

Easwari Engineering College Easwari Engineering College

Bharathi Salai Ramapuram Bharathi Salai Ramapuram

Chennai-600089 Chennai-600089

Submitted the project and viva examination held on __________

INTERNAL EXAMINER EXTERNAL EXAMINER

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We express our sincere thanks to Dr.KATHIRAVAN M.E, Ph.D., our beloved

Principal who has given an opportunity to carry out the project work and

completing the same.

We express our sincere and kind gratitude to Dr. ANTONY Head Of The

Department of Mechanical Engineering for his kind permission to carry out the

project work.

We are most obliged to our guide Dr.B.S.Mohanty, Professor, Department of

Mechanical Engineering for his excellent guidance that inspired to the very

height of sincerity leading us all the way to reach the goal.

We also express our sincere thanks to all others who have helped us to

complete this project a grand success and our special thanks to teaching and

non-teaching staff members of Department Of Mechanical Engineering and our

friends for their kind help in this project.

 ABSTRACT

The purpose of this project is to extract the buds from the sugarcane more

efficiently and to reduce the labour involved in the bud extraction. Sugarcane

loaded into the square structure is pushed by a conveyer arm thereby feeding the

sugarcane to the cutter. We have employed a sensor which would sense the bud

cross section and would cut the entire circular cross-section with help of a cutter

hinged to a crank shaft.

 INTODUCTION

HOW A BUD EXTRACTED FROM SUGARCANE REPLANTED

Settlings
Cane setts with roots and shoots are known as settlings. Settlings can be raised
either in nursery beds or in polythene bags. Single node settlings are used as a
planting material in spaced transplanting technique of raising sugarcane crop.

Bud Chips
Little portion of stem with one bud is known as bud chip. Bud chips are used to
raise settlings in nursery. They were found to produce a good crop when
transplanted in main field. The principal advantage of bud chips is substantial
saving in seed material. Seed requirement is reduced to less than one ton per ha.
Adopting the following procedure raises settlings from bud chips:

Prepare the bud chips from whole cane using a sharp edged knife in such
a way that each bud has a little portion of stem

Plant the bud chips on raised nursery beds adopting a inter-row spacing of
7.5 cm at the rate of 300 buds/m2

Alternatively nursery can be raised in polybags of 15 cm x 10 cm size

 Fill the polybags with homogeneous mixture of equal quantity of soil,
sand and well rotten compost
Plant the bud chips in polybags with the bud facing upwards and cover
with soil mixture to avoid drying of the bud

Bottom of the bags should have holes to facilitate drainage

Ensure regular watering of bags or nursery area

Settlings are ready in 5 - 8 weeks for transplanting in the main field

Under good management conditions establishment of transplanted

seedlings in the main field is high (90-100%)

Raising of Seed Cane Crop

seed quality is not merely a matter of pest

and disease freedom. Seed has to be in high
water content and of good nutritional status

Select an upland field for raising seed crop

with no soil problems (soil salinity, acidity,
water logging etc) and adequate irrigation
facility

Prepare the soil thoroughly and incorporate

20-25 tons/ha of FYM 15 days before
planting

Provide field channels and field drains to

 prevent rain water traversing from adjoining field to check spread of red
rot disease

Select seed material from previously raised seed nursery crop and prepare
the setts. Use only sterilized setts to avoid transmission of certain diseases
like RSD and GSD

Give heat treatment (heat therapy) to eliminate seed borne diseases and
organomercurial treatment to protect the setts from soil borne diseases to
ensure better germination
Adopt narrow spacing of 75 cm to obtain higher yield of setts per unit
area

Use 25% higher seed rate than normal cane crop

Apply higher nutrient dose of 250 kg N + 75 kg P2O5 + 125 kg K2O/ha

Irrigate the crop at optimum levels to avoid any water stress during crop
life taking in to account evaporative demand of the atmosphere (ETo) and
Crop characteristics (Kc) at different crop growth stages

Provide weed free environment for better growth of the crop and also to
avoid infestation of pests and diseases.Adopt field scouting for timely
control of pests and diseases

Rouge out the affected clumps and plants of other varieties and protect
the crop from lodging, binding and propping. Crop is ready in 7 - 8
months. Setts obtained from such crop contain healthy and sound buds,
higher moisture content, adequate nutrients, higher amounts of reducing
sugars, therefore, establish quickly and grow vigorously thus ensuring a
good commercial main field crop.
 CURRENT VERSION OF SUGARCANE BUD EXTRACTOR

The scope of this equipment lies beyond just removing buds from cane. The
current method of deploying sugarcane sets proved laborious, time consuming
and costly. Mr. Roshanlal Vishwakarma, a farmer in Mekh village, Madhya
Pradesh, faced acute difficulties in cultivation and alternative method of
planting individual saplings did not help. It was hampered by lack of
availability of saplings in large numbers. The farmer wondered whether the
sugarcane buds, instead of being planted, could be sown like potatoes on the
fields.

Hard labour

He discussed this idea with an expert. Based on the encouraging feedback he

received to give it a try, the farmer started working on the idea and developed a
simple device after two years of persistent and hard labour. The device, called
sugarcane bud chipper, is floor-mounted and equipped with a knife with a
semicircular edge to surgically cut out the buds in a high impact operation, with
clean finish and practically no damage to the cane.

Handling capacity

The machine can also chop the cane into small pieces, is flexible, and can
handle various sugarcane sizes and diameters. Traditional hand-held cutting
tools create a strain on the hands and thumb, cause wastage, and damage with
slanting cuts, and are incapable of dealing with hard plant grafting.

Machine details

The bud-chipper consists of a surface plate, holding stand, reciprocating

assembly, actuating lever with adjustable screws, connector, U-shaped cutting
knife bolted with a spring stopper projecting downward into a matching groove,
supporting studs and spiral spring for generating thrust.

Clean cut

The semicircular cutting blade delivers a clean and complete cut in a two step
notch and cut operation. The high impact cutting action with outstretched arm
and high shoulder slinging action generates the desired fast impact force for
clean cutting. The machine requires no power or fuel to run it, weighs a few
kilograms making transport easy. The scope of this equipment lies beyond just
removing buds from the cane.
 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

Conventionally, either the whole cane or sets are sown

The device includes a hemispheric knife actuated by a hand operated
lever.
One needs to place the cane on the platform and press the hand lever.
After every stroke the cane needs to be rotated by 180 degree by the other
hand,
The chipped buds can be shown directly in the field or may be grown in
nurseries
One can work for about 4 hours without much fatigue and after getting
rest of 1 hour again work for about 4 hours
It reduces cost of plantation by over 60%.
 DETAILED DISCRIPTION OF THE BUD EXTRACTOR

The machine has a square frame tubes into which the sugarcane is loaded. Due

to gravity the sugarcane carrying tube rotates and moves towards the conveyer

arm. An actuator locks the tube and the conveyer arm pushes the sugarcane into

the feed. The conveyer arm is connected to a chain which is driven by motor.

The sugarcane entering the feed is carefully monitored by a sensor which

calculates the cross-section of the sugarcane. In case of large deviation

produced due to the bud portion of sugar cane the sensor transmits signal to the

arduino Which in turn sends signal to the motor thereby cutting the sugarcane

vertically.The cutting tool is hinged to a crank shaft at the end of which has a

pulley which is inturn run by the motor. A special guide way is been designed

which ensures that the piston reciprocates vertically without losing energy.
PARTS USED IN SUGARCANE BUD EXTRACTOR

FRAME

It is the outer most structure which houses the rest of the components.

The weight produced from the various parts of the machine is equally
distributed to the each leg of the frame

PULLEY

A circular drum like structure used for driving the crank shaft.

The pulley is driven by a motor

PILLOW BLOCK
A circular structure which houses and rigidly holds the crank shaft and prevents
it from vibrating

DIE AND BASE

They constitute the parts of cutting the sugar cane.

They are designed in accordance to the average length of the bud with some
offset distance.

The base has two slit like opening where the cutting tool thuds hence cutting the
sugarcane
PISTON GUIDE WAY
SENSOR USED IS CONTACT PROFILOMETER
A diamond stylus is moved vertically in contact with a sample and then moved
laterally across the sample for a specified distance and specified contact force.
A profilometer can measure small surface variations in vertical stylus
displacement as a function of position. A typical profilometer can measure
small vertical features ranging in height from 10 nanometres to 1 millimetre.
The height position of the diamond stylus generates an analog signal which is
converted into a digital signal, stored, analyzed, and displayed. The radius of
diamond stylus ranges from 20 nanometres to 50 m, and the horizontal
resolution is controlled by the scan speed and data signal sampling rate. The
stylus tracking force can range from less than 1 to 50 milligram

Advantages of contact profilometers:

Acceptance: Most of the world's surface finish standards are written for
contact profilometers. To follow the prescribed methodology, this type of
Profilometer is often required.
Surface Independence: Contacting the surface is often an advantage in dirty
environments where non-contact methods can end up measuring surface
contaminants instead of the surface itself. Because the stylus is in contact
with the surface, this method is not sensitive to surface reflectance or color.
Resolution: The stylus tip radius can be as small as 20 nanometres,
significantly better than white-light optical profiling. Vertical resolution is
typically sub-nanometer as well.
Direct Technique: No modeling required.
 CUTTING FORCE CALCULATION

From practical experiments Force required to cut sugarcane was found to be

1000N

Stroke length= 7cm

Crank length= 3.5cm

Torque required= 35x1000 Nmm

= 35 Nm

Feed force calculation

From practical experiments feed force was found to be 100 N

Pitch diameter of the sprocket

No of teeth = 26

Pitch diameter= 9.525/sin(180/26) = 80 mm

Default pitch 9.525mm is chosen

CHAIN TYPE ROLLER R 940 P=9.525 mm

SPROCKET P.DIA =80 mm 26 TEETH

Torque required = 100x80 Nmm

Standard torque 10Nm is chosen

 CONCLUSION

Thus a sugarcane bud extractor which can efficiently remove the buds presnt in
the sugarcane has been successfully designed and fabricated. It is compact in
size, requires minimal maintenance and easily portable. It is designed in a way
which minimises the cost therefore be used by all.

This prototype can be further developed adding a battery and supplying the
current to the motor via battery.