Early sprouting of yam tuber is a typical problem during storage resulting into weight losses, deterioration, shrinkage and reduction in quality. This study investigated the application of vibration technique to control sprouting in yam tubers during storage. A mechanical yam vibrator having adjustable frequencies and amplitudes was developed with vibrating chamber of capacity size of 670 × 570 × 180 mm3 which can contain four tubers of yam at a time. The physical properties (length, n...
Agriculture, its operations, and soils properties are inter-related. Cultivation of crops; tillage, irrigation and farm operations, commuting to and from farm plot and building of structures are greatly influenced by the soil specifically its properties. Shear stress, cohesion and angle of friction are parameters that play major roles in influencing how soils are used or worked on. It is, therefore, important to determine the shear stress, cohesion and angle of friction of the soils in Kade a...
In the world today, due to the high cost of running a tractor on a farm, there has been many research to see ways of minimizing this cost. Some of these cost come from the tire of the tractor, amount of fuel needed to run the vehicle smoothly, buying spare parts of the tractor and ensuring safety of the tractor. This thesis seeks to find the effect that tire pressures of vehicles have on the fuel consumption and the various ways of reducing this effect if there are any. An experiment was cond...
ABSTRACT A non-weighing lysimeter was designed, fabricated, tested and installed at Arochukwu, Abia State, Nigeria, where the farmers who engage in dry season vegetable production do so with no knowledge of irrigation water requirements. This method tends to either over-irrigation or under-irrigation below the vegetable water requirements. Too much water can leach costly fertilizers to depths below the root zone, where both the water and fertilizer are permanently lost. Too little water caus...
ABSTRACT A direct-heated solar crop dryer suitable for rural farmers and households was developed and evaluated. The simple structured dryer was fabricated using square and round pipes, aluminium sheet, Perspex, wire gauze, bolts and nuts. Its performance was evaluated using cassava chips and three cylindrical aluminium chimneys of heights 1200mm, 800mm and 400mm; all of equal diameter. Mature cassava roots were peeled, washed, chopped into flat circular chips of 10mm thickness and spread on...
ABSTRACT This study is on the determination of the Compressive Strength of Palm Kernel Shell Concrete. The effect of percentage replacements (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%) of crushed granite with palm kernel shell on density and compressive strength of concrete is presented. Concrete cube specimens of mix 1:2:4 were prepared with water-cement ratio of 0.6. The cubes (150mm×150mm×150mm) were cured using water-submerged curing until testing ages of 7, 14, 21 and 28 days when their densities and co...
ABSTRACT An indirect, natural convection solar-assisted charcoal smoking system was designed and fabricated in one of the host communities of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri where most of the fish farmers and processors adopt the conventional method of drying fishes, that is, using firewood. This method which works well during the dry period of the year is very inconvenient during the rainy season. Given the excessive heat generated by firewood and its resultant effect on the pr...
ABSTRACT Being able to assess the hydrologic ability of Abu Habil catchment to satisfy its future water demands is crucial in order to plan for the future and make wise decisions. In this study a Scenario Analysis approach was used by utilizing NB-DSS model for water resource management, evaluation allocation and planning, in order to assess the impacts of possible future water demands on the water resources of Khour Abu Habil catchment. For each scenario, the main outputs of the model were ...
Abstract The computer program for machinery cost estimation (CP-Mace) is a Windows based software program that can be run on a Windows XP or higher system on computers. It is a user-friendly interactive program written in VISUAL BASIC 6 programming language for machinery management. It allows the user to interact with it by entering the required inputs and it will carry out the interactive calculations. The program enables the user to print out the output which is displayed on the screen. Th...
ABSTRACT The broad objective of this research was to recover exhaust gases thermal energy from internal combustion engines for use in other applications. The specific objectives were: to determine the amount of thermal energy lost through exhaust gases at various engine speeds and loads; to determine the amount of energy recovered from exhaust gases at various engine speeds and loads; and to simulate the amount of maize that could be dried with the recovered energy. The experimental set-up c...
ABSTRACT Producing enough food in Kenya to better feed people and generate adequate income for the farmers is a great challenge. This challenge is likely to intensity, with a population that is projected to increase to 66.3 million in 2030. Scarce water resources and growing competition for water will be reduce its availability for irrigation, which necessitating major changes in irrigation management and scheduling in order to increase the efficiency of use of water that is allocated to agr...
ABSTRACT The conversion of forest land to agricultural land and urban settlement usually increases soil erosion, and volume of storm runoff in a catchment. In Kenya, the rural communities are encroaching into the humid and marginal areas to open up new lands for agricultural production and settlement. These changes have led to environmental degradation, which has negatively altered the hydrologic regimes of many catchments in Kenya. The Wundanyi River catchment is one of the catchments that ...
ABSTRACT The availability of egg products for consumption is hindered by spoilage and breakages during processing. Forced convection drying serves as one of the methods of solving these challenges. However, the influence of temperature, airflow rate and slice thickness on forced convection drying of eggs is inadequately documented. Therefore, drying of eggs was investigated under forced convection process. The mode of airflow and the food material was the continuous concurrent type. Raw eggs...
ABSTRACT Most stoves based on the principle of micro gasification have improved thermal efficiencies with low emissions, however, knowledge on the effect of the stove operation at different air flow rates on thermal efficiency, fire power, emissions, specific fuel consumption and burning rate is scarce. The main objective of this research was to evaluate performance a micro gasifier cook stove. An experimental forced draft cook stove was therefore developed using the available materials base...
ABSTRACT Sorghum threshing in Kenya is characterized by high grain breakages and accounts for grain loss of 4% of total production. Existing threshing methods are time consuming and yield a low throughput. Grain losses mainly occur due to grain damage and incomplete removal of grains from panicles. In order to reduce the losses, optimal levels of machine and operational parameters influencing threshing need to be established. A prototype spike tooth sorghum thresher was therefore developed u...