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Abstract — This research paper discusses the design, furniture, wood board, floor parquet applications, bamboo has
development and testing of an integrated splitting and planing to be processed to produce uniformly sized strips [1, 2, 4, 7].
machine for pre-cut bamboo culms. The design of the bamboo These bamboo strips can then be further processed to form the
splitting section was based on existing design of commercially various finished products such as wood boards, floor tiles,
available bamboo splitting machine while the planing section
kitchen chopping boards, table tops and the like [6].
utilized 2 sets of motor powered portable wood planers
integrated into the design which simultaneously planes the top The processing of the bamboo culms into bamboo strips
and bottom sides of the bamboo strip. requires cutting of pre-selected culms into standard lengths,
splitting and planing of four sides of each strip to produce a
The separation of split bamboo strips and sequential transfer uniformly sized and flat strip [5].
to the planing section was designed by the authors and consisted Currently, these steps of bamboo strip processing are done
of axial-mounted vanes within a cylindrical pipe that separate separately and there is interest to develop a machine which
the split bamboo strips and move each strip sequentially to an will integrate at least the bamboo splitting and planing
exit slide onto a chain feeder to the planing section.
processes in one machine. The bamboo culm cutting can be
The automation of the process utilized an Arduino Mega done as a separate step as the cut bamboo has to be pre-sorted
microcontroller board which controlled a stepper motor drive into similar diameter culms in order to come up with similar
and relays to control the feeding chain motor to the planing width sizes of strips [5].
section. In particular, the main objectives of this study were to
design, fabricate and test an integrated bamboo splitting and
The testing of the individual processes of bamboo culm splitting planing machine which:
and strip planing were tested satisfactorily, however, the process
• Splits pre-sorted 1.2 meter length bamboo culms into 8
of separating the split bamboo strips and sequential feeding to
the planing section infeed chain conveyor require further
strips,
improvements as misalignment problems were observed. The • Feed the split strips sequentially to the planer section,
complete process of splitting a 1.2 meter length of bamboo into 8 • Plane the upper and lower sides of the strip into uniform
strips, separation and sequential feeding to the planer and thickness of from 2-5 mm,
planing process required around 165 – 170 seconds to complete, • Complete the process with at least 75% efficiency and
however, the strip transfer process had only a reliability of 80%. quickest time possible as limited by the slowest processing
Index Terms—bamboo splitting machine, bamboo strip planing step which is the planing process.
machine, bamboo strip processing.
I. INTRODUCTION
The humble bamboo is one of the most versatile and useful
tropical plants with myriad of uses as shown in figure 1. As an
alternative material to wood, however, particularly for
Fig. 6. Mechanical design of the strip planer and feeder. A. Experiment #1 Results
Bamboo culms with allowable diameter and thickness are
fed into the splitting machine which splits the bamboo culm
into eight equal strips. Proper set-up and selection of bamboo
will prevent problems with misalignment of the bamboo culm
and the center of the blades, cracks in the bamboo culms after
processing, and jamming of the bamboo strips with the rotating
divider. The measurement of the bamboo strips is directly
related to the diameter of the fed bamboo culm. Larger bamboo
culms will produce wider bamboo strips. Splitting consistency
of the machine refers to the capacity of the machine to produce
Fig. 7. Mechanical design of the strip planer slide and feeder. bamboo strips without any of the cited problems. After the
7th IEEE International Conference Humanoid, Nanotechnology, Information Technology
Communication and Control, Environment and Management (HNICEM)
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) – Philippine Section
12-16 November 2014 Hotel Centro, Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines
splitting process, bamboo strips must be aligned with the C. Experiment # 3 Results
rotating divider in order to achieve proper position and The bamboo planing process involves removal of septum,
orientation of the strips. thickness reduction and flattening of bamboo strips. The final
output of planing consistency tests refers to the capacity of the
TABLE I. RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 1: SPLITTING CONSISTENCY planing machine to produce bamboo strips with thickness of 2-
Trial 5mm. The thickness range of the final output is observed in
Evaluation
no. order to align the final output with possible uses for the
Test result Reason for Failure bamboo strips.
1 Passed
2 Passed
Results showed a more or less uniform thickness in the
processed strips of from 3-4 mm with average of 3.6 mm
3 Passed which is within the range set forth.
4 Passed
TABLE III. RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 3: PLANING CONSISTENCY
5 Passed
Trial
Success Rate: 100% Evaluation
no.
Test result Reason for Failure
The test results showed 100 percent success rate when the 1 Passed
bamboo tubes are presorted for uniform sizing and condition. 2 Passed
B. Experiment # 2 Results 3 Passed
Bamboo strips that slide down from the rotating strip holder 4 Passed
occasionally fall misaligned with the planing machine which
yields poor planing quality. Misalignment of the bamboo strips 5 Passed
may also cause the planer to jam if not fixed immediately. The Success Rate: 100%
purpose of this experiment is to determine the capability of the
machine to align the bamboo strips before they are fed into the
planing machine. Newly split bamboo strips are also positioned D. Experiment # 4 Results
skin side down before they are fed into the planing machine in The integration of several processes made the planing
order to avoid misalignment caused by the septum inside process the bottleneck in the whole operation which makes it
bamboo culms. Septum inside bamboo culms are naturally crucial to hasten this process to increase speed and
thick that’s why considerations are made in order to plane productivity. The goal in this experiment is to determine the
bamboo culms evenly [3]. capability of the planing process of the machine to plane one
bamboo strip every 20 seconds.
TABLE II. RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 2: STRIP ORIENTATION AND
POSITIONING CONSISTENCY
TABLE IV. RESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 1: SPLITTING CONSISTENCY
Trial
Evaluation Trial
no. Process Duration (sec.)
no.
Test result Reason for Failure
1 21
1 Passed
2 18
2 Failed Misalignment
3 21
3 Passed
4 19
4 Passed
5 18
5 Passed
Average: 19 sec.
Success Rate: 80%
means that for 8 strips (from one bamboo tube) it will take at • Once the planing can be done simultaneously for all
least 160 seconds or almost 3 minutes which is not really strips from the splitter, then next area to be looked at is
satisfactory. It is suggested that the planing process for the 8 how to reduce further the planing process by
strips be conducted simultaneously which will require a wider optimizing the planer mechanism and blades,
width of cut for the planing machine. • The design of the transfer, orientation and feeding of
Another area of improvement is the rotary strip holder and the strips from the splitter to the plane is also critical as
feeder which is a bit prone to misalignment of the strip. it can result to jams, mis-alignment and mis-orientation
However, this problem will no longer be relevant once the problems that will affect the throughput and quality of
machine is modified for simultaneous planing of all the strips output.
from one bamboo tube as it will involve an entirely different
design.
The problem in the feeding of the strips also prevented the REFERENCES
reliable running of the machine for the complete processing of
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recommendations for future study: &task=view&id=567, Sept. 28, 2011.
• There is scope for optimizing the blade design and [6] M. Alipon, "Development of glue-laminated bamboo and
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Available:http://aciar.gov.au/files/node/10532/PR129%20Part%
needed as well as new planer with wider effective 203.
width of cut must be designed,