Development and Evaluation of a Honeycomb Uncapping Machine | ||||
Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||||
Article 1, Volume 10, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 377-381 PDF (821.13 K) | ||||
Document Type: Original Article | ||||
DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2019.53676 | ||||
![]() | ||||
Authors | ||||
Y. A. Shaaban1; H. M. T. El-Ghobashy1; A. M. O. El-Ashkar1; Solaf S. Abd El-Reheem1; A. M. M. Ghania2 | ||||
1Agric. Eng. Res. Inst., ARC, Dokki. Giza. Egypt | ||||
2The Honeybee Res. Dept. plant protection Res. Inst., ARC, Dokki, Giza, Egypt | ||||
Abstract | ||||
An uncapping machine was designed and fabricated to uncap both two sides of honeycomb leading to remove the thin wax layer that seals the honey cells. The developed uncapping machine is tested at the Agric. Eng. Res. Inst (2019) under four feeding chain speeds (10, 15, 20 and 25 rpm), four spiral knife speeds (150, 200, 250 and 300 rpm) and four levels of heating temperature for the uncapping device (without heating, 35 , 40 and 45 0C). The interaction effect between different parameters for the uncapping device resulted in 192 tests. Measurements were taken for the machine productivity, uncapping efficiency and power requirement. The obtained results concluded that the uncapping machine can be operated successfully atthe optimum operating parameters of 10 rpm feeding chain speed, 300 rpm spiral knife speed and 40 °C of spiral knife temperature. These operating conditions cause an uncapping efficiency of 95.2 %, productivity of 240 frames / h, consumed specific energy of 8.9×10-3 kW.h/frame. The uncapping machine reduced the estimated cost by 3 times than the manual knife uncapping. Therefore, the developed uncapping honeycombs machine is considered an effective solution for precise controlling of uncapping honeycomb invade Egyptian beekeepers and it gives continuous satisfactory uncapping. | ||||
Statistics Article View: 182 PDF Download: 511 |
||||