DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF A MULTIDECK GARI SIEVING MACHINE

Abstract Gari is a very important staple food made from cassava and is eaten in many parts of Africa. Gari has a granular nature and may contain different sizes of grains ranging from as small as 1 mm to as large as 6 mm. Depending on where and how gari is going to be eaten, specific particle sizes are desirable. The market value of gari is therefore reduced if a given sample to be bought has different grain sizes mixed together. To correct this, gari is often sieved into varying particle sizes using manual methods and this is often slow and laborious. As such, there arises the need for a machine to sieve gari particles into various sizes which can fit into an existing production setup and is less expensive than already existing ones on the market. This paper discusses all parameters which were considered to design a machine to automatically perform this sieving of the food into 3 distinct grades. A full conceptual design of the machine was developed and was ready for fabrication. Static and vibration simulations were carried out on parts of the machine most susceptible to failure and factors of safety between 1.4 and 5 were obtained for all these parts. Fabrication of the device was started but due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the fabrication could not be completed