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Design of manually operated multiple-seed planting machine for an

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 Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 7375–7379

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

Design of manually operated multiple-seed planting machine for an

Ethiopian environment
Addisalem Adefris Legesse a,⇑, Velmurugan Paramasivam a, Senthil Kumaran Selvaraj b
a
School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, College of Engineering and Technology, Dilla University, P.O. Box 419, Dilla, Ethiopia
b
Department of Manufacturing Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore 632014, Tamil Nadu, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The advancement of technology has been influenced and enhances the production rate and quality of
Received 16 December 2020 industrial and agricultural products. This study aimed to design and manufacture portable and multiple
Received in revised form 26 December 2020 seed planting machines from locally available materials. The paper deals principally with the design and
Accepted 28 December 2020
manufacturing process of the seeder machine. The design feature considers the geometrical components,
Available online 13 February 2021
driving power determination, and stress and forces Analysis of each part. Pro-Engineer and solid work
software were used for part details and assembly drawing. Materials were selected based on functional-
Keywords:
ity, durability, cost, and local availability. Hence, Sheet metal steel was used for the fabrication of the seed
Seeder
Maize
and fertilized boxes, seed, and fertilizer metering disc were fabricated from polyvinylchloride (PVC) and
Seed box the power transitions elements like transitions shafts and gears also fabricated from round steel bar. The
Multiple seed seeder machine was assembled by the permanent joining of the frame (Arc welding), and the remaining
Metering disc components were bolted to each other in their places. Experimental tests have been performed to eval-
Planting uate the performance and functionality of the seeder. It was observed that the machine had been put
Productivity (dropped) the seed within the design space gap between the consecutive plants and the required amount
of fertilizer were placed with the designed depth.
Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Con-
ference on Materials, Manufacturing and Modelling.

1. Introduction include broadcasting manually, opening furrows by a country plow

Agriculture has a prolonged historical activity that performs dif-
ferently to fulfill the basic need for human beings’ lives. According
to Ethiopia’s population assessment, more than 80% of peoples live
in the agricultural sectors, which depend on agriculture [1]. To
improve the developing country’s economic condition, growth in
the agricultural sector has a significant role or essential [2,3]. To
achieve this goal, efforts are necessary to reduce the farming pro-
cess’s cost by mechanizing agricultural operations [3,4]. In Ethio-
pia, small landholder farmers continue to plant the crop
manually. These traditional methods result of which is low produc-
tivity of the crops [5,6]. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce a
low-cost planter that will reduce tedium and drudgery and maxi-
mize small landholder farmers’ production to produce more foods
and environmentally friendly [7,8]. Traditional methods of sowing
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: addisalem@du.edu.et (A. Adefris Legesse), drvelmuruganp@du.
edu.et (V. Paramasivam), senthilkumaran.s@vit.ac.in (S.K. Selvaraj).
and dropping seeds by hand, and dropping seeds in the furrow
through a bamboo, i.e., making holes or slits by a stick or tool
and dropping seeds by hand, are practiced [9,10]. However, this
method might have drawbacks like no control over the depth of
seed placement, No uniformity in the distribution of seed place-
ment, Loss of seeds, variation in spacing between plant and row,
very time consuming and more labors are required for this opera-
tion [11,12]. Mechanization in agriculture holds the key for sus-
tainable development in increasing the production by timely
farm operations, reducing losses, reducing the cost of operations
by ensuring better management of costly inputs, and enhancing
productivity [13]. This present work focuses on the design and fab-
rication of a single row multiple seed planter machine for multiple
crops using locally available materials that enable putting the seed
and fertilizer in rows at desired depth and seed to seed spacing
seeds with soil shown in Fig. 1. The design philosophy is to
improve our country’s traditional sowing trend of crops that are
labor-intensive, time-consuming, and inefficient. Nowadays, in
Ethiopia, the agriculture or plantation system has been performing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.12.1119
2214-7853/Ó 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Conference on Materials, Manufacturing and Modelling.
A. Adefris Legesse, V. Paramasivam and Senthil Kumaran Selvaraj Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 7375–7379

The planter machine is designed for easy, low-cost construction

with readily available parts. After each part or components of seed
planter are designed, parts are fabricated by conventional welding
workshops and machine shop. Finally, the fabricated planter
machine has been tested for functionality and better performance.

3.1. Power developed by the operator

The average power generated by the human operator [4] is

determined by:
HP ¼ 0:35  0:092 logt ¼ 0:13Hp Where t ¼ time in minute ð1Þ
The average field operator speed of the machine for smooth soil
is 0.4 m/s. Hence the force requires to push the machine can be cal-
culated as:
75  power generated by the human ðhpÞ
Fig. 1. Traditional plough system in Ethiopia. PushðkgÞ ¼
speed ðm=sÞ
75  0:15
by (i) traditional forecasting and furrow opening mechanism also ¼ ¼ 245:66 N ð2Þ
0:4
done with animal-driven traditional equipment. In addition to that,
(ii) the seeds’ placement is not on their proper distance plants and
3.2. Design of seedbox
raw. The time and labor consumption of the traditional forecasting
for the challenges for the sowing of seeds. Those challenges are
The cylinder shape of seed and fertilizer boxes is generally used
lead to low productivity in the sector. The study’s main objective
in the machine for the free flow of seeds and fertilized shown in
is to design and manufacture manually operated multiple-seed
Fig. 2. The volume of seed and fertilizer box [2] is listed in Table 2.
and fertilizer planting machines for the Ethiopian agriculture sys-
tem to improve the sector’s productivity and reduce wastage of V B ¼ 1:1 V S ¼ 2:895 cm3 ð3Þ
time.
3
Where VB = volume of seed box (cm ), VS = volume of seed/fertilizer
(cm3)
2. Materials and method And the volume of seed/fertilizer also determined as:

The philosophy for selecting the right material for engineering
purposes is that materials that can serve the desired objective at
minimum cost. The following guiding factors are considered for
the selection of material. It is easily welded and having appropriate
strength for the required task. It has been good machinability and
suitable heat treatment properties. Relatively low cost and will
have good surface texture, particularly for a metering disc. There-
fore, materials utilized for the manufacturing of a seed planter
machine are listed in Table.1.
3. Results and discussion
The seed planter a mechanical Analysis of components or struc-
tures; power transmission system from the ground wheel to the
metering disc, seed and fertilizer dropping mechanism, and fur-
rowing the raw and covering mechanism of soil has been designed.
weight of seed in the box
VS ¼ ðg=cm3 Þ ¼ 2:63 cm3 ð4Þ
bulk density of seed
3.3. Design of ground wheel
The ground wheel of the seed planter machine is used to make a
motion for the machine and seed metering mechanism shown in
Fig. 3. It is made from steel, having a thickness of 3 cm and six
stretching bare to maintain its circularity and have enough
strength. The ground wheel of the machine rotation is directly
related to the sowing disk; that is, the wheel and metering disk
have a one-to-one-dimensional ratio. The distance covered by the
ground wheel is equal to the distance covered by the metering disk
within single rotation. The ground wheel diameter should be
40 cm, and the distance covered by single rotation is 125 cm.
within a single rotation of ground wheel, it enables to put four
maize seeds within a 30 cm gap. The selection of material is now

Table 1
Specification of materials used for seeding machine.

Components Quantity Materials Dimension (mm)

Radial ball Bearing 2 Do = 42, Din = 20
Seed box 1 Steel sheet D = 400, H = 400
Fertilizer box 1 Steel D = 200,
Furrow opener 1 Mild steel
Handle 2 steel
Shaft 2 steel D = 25, L = 440
wheel 2 steel D = 400
hose 2 Rubber D = 16,
Leg (support) 2 steel
Locking pin 4 steel D=6
Soil cover 1 steel
Bush 1 steel Di = 25.5,
Bolt and nut 14 steel
Bevel gear 2 Grade 40 Steel
Fig. 2. Seed and fertilized box.

7376
A. Adefris Legesse, V. Paramasivam and Senthil Kumaran Selvaraj Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 7375–7379

Table 2 Table 4. (1) Tangential/transmitted load, (2) radial force, (3) axial
Bulk density of seeds. force.
No Type of seed Bulk density (g/cm)
1 Wheat 1.118 3.5.1. Tangential load on the gear
2 Green gram 1.12 It can be calculated from the torque that developed on the main
3 Bajra 0.62 shaft.
4 Gram 0.82
2T 1 2:93
Ft ¼ ¼ ¼ 1:465 N ð6Þ
dm1 2
T1 = torque developed on the main shaft, Dm1 = middle circle
dia, Ft = tangential load

3.5.2. Radial load on the gear tooth

Wt
FR ¼ ¼ 1:51N ð7Þ
cosa
Where a = pressure angle of tooth

3.5.3. Axial load on the gear tooth

Fig. 3. Ground wheel.
It can be determined by using the equesion:

F a1 ¼ F t  tana  sin a ¼ 1:465  tan14:5  sin45

also no need of hardness property ASIM 1020 sheet metal with a
thickness of from 2.5 to 3 mm metal will be recommended listed
in Table 3.
3.4. Design of metering disk
Seed metering mechanism is a more positive device. The meter-
ing disk can be made from a plastic disk (PVC); rotation of the disk
creates from vertical rotation shaft, connecting to ground wheel by
bevel gears shown in Fig. 4. Rotation causes the seeds and fertilizer
to flow out from its box. Seed rate is controlled by some design
numbers of holes on seed and fertilizer metering disk. Since the
wheel and disk has 1:1 dimensional ratio, the number of holes
on the metering disk can be obtained:
circumfrance of the wheel
NHoles ¼
distance berween plants
Where N is the number of holes on the circumference of the meter-
ing disk
The circumference of the disk is 125 mm, and distance between
plants for maize is 30 mm. hence the number of holes on the disk
is: N Holes ¼ 120
30
¼ 4 holes
3.5. Design of bevel gear
The bevel gears are used for transmitting power at a constant
velocity ratio between two shafts whose axes intersect at a certain
angle. Material selection of gears has to be done to determine the
module, and the selection criteria are because of surface hardness
and stress resistance. The mechanical properties of steel hardened
grade of C40 steel for fatigue strength 1520 N/mm2 and permissi-
ble bending strength 392 N/mm2 and yield strength 392 N/mm2
[5]. Force analysis of a pair of mating bevel gears its assumed that
total force Fn act on their pitch point at the middle of the teeth
width it is resolved into three mutually perpendicular components
Table 3
Parameters for ground wheel.
Parameters
Circumference (cm) Speed of wheel (rpm) Thickness (mm)
125 20 3
¼ 0:268N ð8Þ
For this design, both the gear and pinion have the same number
of teeth and gear diameter since we have a 1:1 motion transmis-
sion ratio. Therefore they have the same force acting on both pin-
ion and gear.
3.6. Design of horizontal shaft
The shaft is a rotating member; it has a circular cross section
and is used to transmit power or motion. The shaft can be catego-
rized into two based on the subject’s point of view. a) Transmission
Shaft: it is used to transmit power between the drivers to driven
(source to destination), and since these shafts carry machine parts
such as pulleys, gears, etc., therefore such types of shafts are sub-
ð5Þ jected to bending in addition to twisting. b) Machine shafts: These
types of shafts are an integral part of the machine itself. The crank-
shaft is an example of a machine shaft shown in Fig. 5. From those
two types of shaft, the transmission shaft type was selected
according to its purpose. The overall axial (longitudinal) detention
of the shaft can be determined by (i) Axial length of gear (face
width) that mount on the T shaft is calculated before on the gear
design (b = 20), (ii) Axial length of (face width) of bearing that sup-
port the shaft at the two ends of the shaft, because of yet not a
selection of bearing it is estimated to be = 20, (iii) The gap between
the gear and the frame of the machine.
The material selected for the axle should have higher bending
strength and shearing strength. So Steel (Normalized) with AISI
1080 with yield strength 345mpa meet these requirements steel
is selected. From the result of deflection and shear stress analysis,
the initial diameter of the shaft should be standardizing to the
nearest and largest standard; therefore, d = 24 mm.
3.7. Bearing selection
Bearing is a machine element that permits relative motion
between two parts, such as the shaft and housing, with minimum
friction. Depending on the type of friction between the shaft and
the bearing is classified into two major groups, (i) Sliding contact
bearing, (ii) Rolling contact bearing. From roller contact bearing
or simple ball bearing, deep groove ball bearing is selected for this
present work. It is because it can take in radial and the axial direc-
tion shown in Fig. 6.
7377
A. Adefris Legesse, V. Paramasivam and Senthil Kumaran Selvaraj Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 7375–7379

Fig. 4. seed and fertilizer metering disk.

Table 4
Designed parameter of transmission gear (bevel) with gear ratio 1:1.

Pitch circle diameter Base circle diameter Outer circle diameter Face width Module No of teeth Contact angle
60 55 64 14 2 30 42.43o

of the area of land covered per time may be obtained from the fol-
lowing expression [6].
Area coverage by the machine
Fig. 5. Horizontal shaft layout.
C PA ¼ ðhectare=timeÞ ð9Þ
1000
However, the planter’s capacity can also be determined by the
number of seeds dropped per time [2]. It can express by the follow-
ing equation:
Distance covered per time  seed per hole
C NS ¼ ð10Þ
Distance between row
Capacity of the planter machine is 0.15 ha/hrs.

3.9. The time required to cultivate a hectare of land

To determine the time requires covering a unit hectare of land

obtained by [2,6].
1
T¼ ðhoursÞ ð11Þ
Planter capacity in terms of area
(Inter-Raw spacing is 0.5 m, Per Hectare we have 200 rows, and
Fig. 6. Rolling contact bearing.
from performance test; Single Raw has been taken 2 min).
Therefore from this scenario, the time required or sufficient
The main criteria for bearing selection are based on the force filed time to accomplish 1 Hectare land covered is 6.67 hrs.
(load) it will carry and the life required and while the expected life-
time of the selected bearing should be specified based on the 3.10. Design of furrow opener
machine’s duty. The bearing’s design life requirement
(LD = 10 years, 90 days/year, 4 hrs/days). Bearing reliability is The furrow opener is the specific device that opens the furrow
95%, for commercial gear. Using the proper steps, we have to select into which the seed is placed, shown in Fig. 7. Draft force (Df) on
the bearing for the planter machine is listed in Table 5. the furrow opener is kgf and acting at the height of L/3 from the
bottom of the furrow opener, where L is the total length of the fur-
row opener.
3.8. Determination of planter capacity DF ¼ K  W  D ð12Þ
DF = draft of ridger bottom, kg or N, K = specific soil resistance
The planter’s capacity may be determined in terms of the area
kg/cm2 or N/cm2 it depends on the types of soil, heavy soils, it
of land covered per time during planting or the number of seeds
should take 3–5 times of normal soils. W = width of furrow opener,
planted per time of planting [2]. The planter’s capacity in terms
cm D = depth of sowing cm. The maximum bending moment
induce on the furrow opener is:
Table 5
L
Parameter for selected bearing. M b ¼ DF  ð13Þ
3
Bearing No. Inside diameter (mm) Outside diameter (mm) Width (mm)
15 kg  13.34 cm = 200 kg-cm = 200 kg-cm  10 N/
6004 20 42 12
kg  10 mm/cm = 20000 N.mm
7378
A. Adefris Legesse, V. Paramasivam and Senthil Kumaran Selvaraj
Fig. 7. furrow opener.
Fig. 8. 3D model for seed and fertilizer planter.
Take the factor of safety = 2
Therefore, the maximum bending moment = 20000 N.mm  2,
Mb = 40000 N.mm
Where Mb is a maximum bending moment, L is the length of
arm/from the tip of a shovel to the frame (mm). Since the draft
force is deficient, this portion of the furrow opener is not designed
from a strength point of view. Therefore mild steel sheet with the
permissible yield strength (dyield = 56 N/mm2) is selected. Flat iron
(Mild Steel) of 20 X 10 mm is quite safe for the furrow opener. The
final model design and assembled is shown in Fig. 8.
7379
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Materials Today: Proceedings 46 (2021) 7375–7379
4. Conclusion
The advancement of this present work from the theoretical
aspects to its practical application is a huge contribution to the
development of Ethiopian Agricultural technology and enhances
the productivity of the sector. The seed planter machine’s design
is not intricate, and its fabrication should be promoted considering
the import substitution, less maintenance, and no skilled labor
requirements. On the functionality and performance testing, it
was observed that the seed planter has been operating effectively
and put the maize seed fertilizer within the designed space of
the plant. Observed that the machine has light in weight, portable
to handle, and interesting ergonomically.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Addisalem Adefris Legesse: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources. Velmurugan Paramasi-
vam: Writing - review & editing, Data curation. Senthil Kumaran
Selvaraj: Visualization, Supervision, Writing - original draft.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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