Design of Manually Operating Inline Seeder Machine

Yalemwas Enyew, Wubante Worku, Yeneabat Fentahun, Abdi Gemechu, Yeabsira Getu
Natnael Bekele, advisor
Hayileeyesus, technical assistant

INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is the most important sector of the Ethiopian economy. Although, the traditional way of ploughing, sowing and harvesting makes it impossible to feed the rapidly growing population of the
country. Modern agricultural types of machinery are not used and the production is very low because of this reason the country is facing constantly repeated famine and food shortage. Ethiopia is
still importing agricultural products like wheat from other countries. The basic problem of our agricultural sector is the method of sowing the seeds. Traditional methods include broadcasting
manually, opening furrows by a country plow and dropping seeds by hand. Traditional sowing operation has limitations such as high labor requirements, inaccurate seed and fertilizer placement.
time-consuming and poor production capacity, Series backache problems on farmers.

Therefore, the target of this project is solving the problem that reduces the production rate of the crops, reducing the wasted crops, and the problem of the wasted labor force or reduces drudgery.
This machine has a very little cost and is very simple to use hence; the unskilled farmer is also able to handle this machine. To achieve the best performance from an inline seeder, the above limits
are to be optimized by proper design and selection of the components required on the machine. The simplified design also made it cheaper and affordable to every rural farmer. We made various
adjustments and simplified it from a controlling and maintaining point of view.
.

METHODS DISCUSSION
To increase the production rate of our farmers this manually operated inline seeder machine is
The design solution was found by first reviewing the relevant available works of literature on very crucial. It also reduces long-term health problems such as backache and spinal cord due
existing inline seeders and determine important parameters like soil type and hardness, ergonomics to high stress during traditional sowing processes. Due to its cheap price farmers can easily
for Ethiopian farmers, etc. to be considered in the design. access it. The design of a manually operated inline seeder contains different parts that have
The designation is based on standard design processes, starting from identification of the problem different functions.
up to computing the geometrical and stress (force) analysis with the appropriate material selection
based on the analysis. Each component of the machine is going to be designed by considering The mechanism for metering seeds and fertilizer from many the selection of the feature
different theories such as failure theory and by analyzing the maximum allowable strength of the mechanism with grooved disc meters is the beneficial and viable decision. Some of the
material regarding the design geometry. drawbacks of this model of the mechanism are expected to get remedies in the design analysis
Generally, we follow the following procedures to design the manually operated inline seeder. phase with considerations and through a good search of suitable alternatives.
More compromising and realistic tasks are going to be comprehensively covered in the design
analysis and synthesis phase. However, having a clear idea on the following point is
unavoidable. These are:
What part of society will use it? Farmers who have less art and the potential to use advanced
equipment are the target.
What mechanisms are to be used to satisfy the need of the user?
What different components should the seeder expect to have so that to implement the above
mechanism?
Special design considerations:
1. seed hopper size.
2. Metering mechanism
3. Depth of planting and row spacing
4. Seed rate
Some of the main components
seed hopper
Metering disc
Axle shaft
Wheel
Vertical beam and inclined beam
Fig 1: Assembly CATIA design
Sprocket and chain
Opener
Closers and others.
RESULTS The Software used for design is CATIA V5 (computer aided three dimensional interactive
application): which is multiplatform software suite for computer aided design (CAD), computer
aided manufacturing(CAM) and other interface. Used to construct different models. Such as
This machine has a very little cost and is very simple to use hence; the unskilled farmer is also able Part modeling: the part design work bench enables us to design precise 3D mechanical parts.
to handle this machine. The simplified design also made it cheaper and affordable to every rural
farmer. We made various adjustments and simplified it from a controlling and maintaining point of
view. As the existing natural resources are not enough to satisfy the present human needs it is a
must to follow the certain scientific way that leads to sustainable contentment. The need to planting
machines is one of the measures that are considered as today's better way to reach more
advanced and conserved agriculture.

CONCLUSIONS
This manually operated inline seeder was designed to solve the problems encountered in the traditional
sowing operations practiced in Ethiopia.
The designed machine is low cost, easy to operate and maintain, lightweight, portable, and easy to
handle.
The proposed manually operating wheat inline seeder could sow the same area nearly three
times better production rate by a single person.
The new design inline seeder can sow the seed by mixing it with the fertilizer which is
efficient and effective.
Accordingly, the designed machine costs around 10,700 ETB. The machine has an overall
dimension that a width of 800mm, the height of 1175mm, and the length of 1496mm.

Fig 2: prototype of inline seeder machinne

References: J.E. Shigley. (1986). “Mechanical engineering design’.2 nd ed, McGraw Hill(ed) N.Y.
Mikell P.Groover “Fundamentals of modern manufacturing”, 4th ed.
Mahesh, R.,et. al. (1987) “A seed sowing machine.” A review journal of engineering and social science. volume 3, Issue 3.
R.S. khurmi, J.k. Gupta. (2002). A textbook of Machine Design. New Delhi: Ram Nagar
And others.

Acknowledgement: Foremost, we want to offer this endeavor to our God Almighty for giving us strength, peace of mind, and good health to finish this project. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to our project
advisor, Mr. Natnael Bekele and our technical assistant Mr. Hayileeyesus who have always been by our side for guidance, evaluation, supervision, and consultation throughout the project work. And to Mechanical
Engineering Department for their guidance and constant supervision as well as providing the necessary resources regarding this research.

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