Michael Adeyeri | FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AKURE, ONDO STATE, NIGERIA. (original) (raw)

Papers by Michael Adeyeri

Advanced Materials Research, 2009

The paper work is aimed at using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to develop window based design softwa... more The paper work is aimed at using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to develop window based design software that combines flexibility with adequate users interface for the design of chain drives as an engineering transmission element. The chain drives considered are of two types; silent and roller. The calculations are programmed either through ‘known torque’ or ‘through guess pitch value’. The design software combines computational with sketch template in a single process to generate the required parameters of the chain drives. The package was tested with a number of case studies and the results obtained were quite satisfactory.

International journal of industrial engineering and management, Sep 30, 2022

Energy usage is a great concern for industrialists because it is a prime determinant of productio... more Energy usage is a great concern for industrialists because it is a prime determinant of production cost. When energy consumption becomes a challenge, the industrial production process remains unsustainable. Hence, the need for automating the process control model of the plantain flour processing facility for its energy consumption optimization. Time and motion study was used on the plantain processing plant on a modular basis to develop the control system. The model control system for the plant was simulated and implemented. Experimental runs were carried out, and a system response time of 30 milliseconds was computed. In comparison, the results show that using the automated facility saved 30% more energy than running the plant manually. Thus, contributing control process model as an energy optimization concept for plantain flour plant facility.

Mindanao Journal of Science and Technology, Jun 22, 2021

International Journal of Integrated Engineering, Jan 7, 2021

A plantain flour process plant consisting of washing, grating, drying, milling and sieving machin... more A plantain flour process plant consisting of washing, grating, drying, milling and sieving machines could be set up in a single static layout pattern. But for greater productivity, more efficient use of facility, reduction in processing time and elimination of bottlenecks along the process plant could be obtained. An improved facility layout model was developed for a plantain flour process plant using data from an existing process plant by considering: the breakeven point for investment; and reliability of the facility layout. Comparison was made using data from the initial layout pattern (static layout) with the dynamic layout pattern to aid robust modelling. Considerable level of reduction in the cost of material handling was achieved as congestion along the process plant was minimized and processing time in the dynamic layout generated was much reduced. The breakeven analysis result reflects the extent of improvement per throughput. Testing the models with throughput sizes of 21.87 kg, 43.74 kg, 65.62 kg, 87.49 kg and 109.36 kg, the average processing time to breakeven point was 4703.9 minutes, and this was drastically reduced by 36 % to an average of 3008.5 minutes when the improved facility layout model was introduced.

Plantain is used for the management of type II diabetes. Plantain is usually processed into value... more Plantain is used for the management of type II diabetes. Plantain is usually processed into value-added and storable products, such as flour, in order to extend its shelf-life and make it available for consumption all the year round. Processing plantain into flour requires that its size be reduced before drying in order to increase its drying rate, reduce its processing time, and prevent microbial growth and decay. This paper presents conceptual design and finite element analysis (FEA) of a machine for particulating plantain in a plant that processes unripe plantain into flour. The machine consists of a hopper with cover, a particulating drum, a shaft, a belt drive, an electric motor, a pulley, a delivery chute and a support frame. Model for the machine was developed using Solid Works Computer Aided Design (CAD) application software. Appropriate materials were selected for its component parts and their design analysis was done. Its functionality and structural stability were evaluat...

Maintenance practices play great role in industrial facilities management and its productivity in... more Maintenance practices play great role in industrial facilities management and its productivity index. This research work therefore presents the assessment of maintenance activities being observed in some selected wood and log processing industries (sawmills) in Ekiti and Osun states in Nigeria so as to rate their practices and proffer solutions as deem fit. The appraisal metric used hinges on maintenance practice factor (MPF) and maintenance practice contributions (MPC). The study made use of oral interviews and structured questionnaire administered to fifty (50) sawmills in which twenty (20) respondents wholeheartedly cooperated in responding to the questionnaires. Statistical detailed analysis of the data carried out showed that only 30% of the respondents in the maintenance department rated the maintenance practices carried out in the maintenance of the equipment and machineries as satisfactory while 70% rated it good. 63.3 % of the maintenance strategy used in the sawmill indust...

This chapter proposes machine signature integrity and its violation detection as an approach to f... more This chapter proposes machine signature integrity and its violation detection as an approach to fault diagnostic. It uses machine history and its present (in situ) data through monitoring as potent tool in detecting incipient faults. This monitoring program is a function of set parameters that put in place as watch dog to provide signals or alert whenever there is fault initiation on the machine system. A robust flowchart on how fault could be detected, isolated, and identified along with its algorithm for the diagnostic program inherent on vibration-induced faults is presented, and if these algorithms are rightly appropriated, fault will not only be detected, but isolated and identified in any production system or manufacturing.

Research on Engineering Structures and Materials, 2021

Production Engineering Archives, 2021

Diabetes, adjudged a risk factor for coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19), can be manag... more Diabetes, adjudged a risk factor for coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19), can be managed through consumption of plantain and its associated products. Plantain is usually processed into flour and other storable/value-added products due to its very short shelf-life. To process unripe plantain pulps into flour, there is a need for size reduction after drying. This paper presents the development and performance evaluation of a size reduction unit for pulverizing, sieving and conveying material to the next processing stage in a plantain flour process plant. Its model was developed using solidworks application software. After design analysis, the model was simulated to establish its suitability/adequacy for fabrication. The pulverizer was fabricated using locally available materials. Its performance evaluation gave 400kg/h throughput, 96% crushing efficiency and 96% efficiency based on the required particle size. The average particle size of flour obtained was 236μm using 500μm...

International Journal of Integrated Engineering, 2018

Journal of Industrial Engineering International, 2017

The reconfigurable vibrating screen (RVS) machine is an innovative beneficiation machine designed... more The reconfigurable vibrating screen (RVS) machine is an innovative beneficiation machine designed for screening different mineral particles of varying sizes and volumes required by the customers' through the geometric transformation of its screen structure. The successful RVS machine upkeep requires its continuous, availability, reliability and maintainability. The RVS machine downtime, which could erupt from its breakdown and repair, must also be reduced to the barest minimum. This means, there is a need to design and develop a maintenance system model that could be used to effectively maintain the RVS machine when utilized in surface and underground mines. In view of this, this paper aims to develop a maintenance system model that could be used to effectively maintain the RVS machine when used in surface and underground mines. The maintenance system model unfolds the predictive (i.e. diagnosis and prognosis) algorithms, the e-maintenance strategic tools as well as the dynamic maintenance strategic algorithms required to effectively maintain the RVS machine. Four different case studies were presented in this paper to illustrate the applicability of this maintenance system model in maintaining and managing the RVS machine when utilized in the mining industries.

Journal of Industrial Engineering International, 2017

The article is centred on software system development for manufacturing company that produces pol... more The article is centred on software system development for manufacturing company that produces polyethylene bags using mostly conventional machines in a competitive world where each business enterprise desires to stand tall. This is meant to assist in gaining market shares, taking maintenance and production decisions by the dynamism and flexibilities embedded in the package as customers' demand varies under the duress of meeting the set goals. The production and machine condition monitoring software (PMCMS) is programmed in C# and designed in such a way to support hardware integration, real-time machine conditions monitoring, which is based on condition maintenance approach, maintenance decision suggestions and suitable production strategies as the demand for products keeps changing in a highly competitive environment. PMCMS works with an embedded device which feeds it with data from the various machines being monitored at the workstation, and the data are read at the base station through transmission via a wireless transceiver and stored in a database. A case study was used in the implementation of the developed system, and the results show that it can monitor the machine's health condition effectively by displaying machines' health status, gives repair suggestions to probable faults, decides strategy for both production methods and maintenance, and, thus, can enhance maintenance performance obviously.

2015 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2015

The paper is aimed at analysing and improving the sorting, packaging and delivery operations at a... more The paper is aimed at analysing and improving the sorting, packaging and delivery operations at a cucumber packaging industry. Packaging operation of a farm in Mpumalanga, South Africa has been studied in detail and possible areas of improvement are proposed. It is a usual practice for farms in South Africa to have packaging centre where farm produce is been sorted, packaged and delivered for various customers across the country. Perishable farm produce requires special handling, care and timely delivery to end users or consumers so as to keep to the limit of it shelf life. The farm under consideration has been having a lot of damages as a result of improper and poor packaging operation. Therefore, the study makes use of Lean Six Sigma tools to analyse and quantify the efficiency of the current packaging system and proffers a better and profitable approach in minimising waste. The result shows that simple changes in system arrangement and concepts can significantly reduce the damages, increase number of deliveries and improve system performance measures.

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2015

The purpose of this paper is to use product demand or sales turnout of products in a competitive ... more The purpose of this paper is to use product demand or sales turnout of products in a competitive environment as an indicator to suggest maintenance strategies for machinery. The model takes account of singular products from several companies or industries, thus giving room for a share factor in the market population. The model is developed based on the factors of maintenance severity, production capacity, output production, production strategies and demand for the product. It also integrates conventional manufacturing, just-in-time (JIT) and automation with maintenance cultures such as predictive, preventive and breakdown, coupled with a spare parts inventory. The software was developed using C# to ease and consolidate the entire research. Production data and product turnout for the same products for twelve weeks from one industry with were collected and analysed to validate this concept. The output of the integrated maintenance product demand model is dynamic, as the suggested maintenance strategy based on product demand varies with time. The model formulated was able to assist in taking appropriate maintenance decisions on machinery, thereby reducing the mean time to failure (MTTF) and thus correcting the products backlog and enhancing overall equipment effectiveness, management of machinery, products flow and materials inventory.

2015 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM), 2015

The height adjustable wheel chair focuses on meeting the needs of paraplegics' patients and t... more The height adjustable wheel chair focuses on meeting the needs of paraplegics' patients and the poor disabled persons who desire to perform certain tasks independently and privately, such as picking items from shelves, cupboard and wardrobes at the standing height of average human being. Hence, an appropriate wheelchair to meet their need has been designed using low cost and readily available materials to achieve this product. The existing wheelchair was evaluated before its modification was done in justifying the established improvement. To achieve this, the wheel chair was redesigned with a low centre of gravity to enhance stability with the introduction of sizeable hydraulic jack to aid height adjustment. Performance evaluation of the developed wheelchair was carried out to ensure standardization in meeting the needs of the intended users. On basis of ease of operation to a chosen height of 2m using pulses generated, 79 pulses/ minutes was recorded for the improved wheelchair as against the 95 pulses/minutes of the existing wheelchair. Also it takes 28 seconds and 36 seconds for the modified and existing wheelchairs to reach the set height respectively. It offers confinement for adjustment to desired height position and provides mobility while at chosen elevated position.

Journal of Industrial Engineering International, 2015

Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public.

Environment and Water Resource Management / 813: Modelling and Simulation / 814: Power and Energy Systems / 815: Health Informatics, 2014

Farm mechanisation is a practice of doing work on agricultural farms by means of machinery instea... more Farm mechanisation is a practice of doing work on agricultural farms by means of machinery instead of human or animal labour. Land preparation, tillage, planting and harvesting operations are all farm practices that have been mechanized. Three forms of bed preparation are commonly used in farming namely; flat, heaps and ridges. Ridge-making has been mechanised, leaving heaping to be done manually using the locally fabricated handmade hoe. In this research work, an attempt is made to design a fourbar mechanism to give the required working part motion for soil heaping operation. The angles and distance of the four positions were obtained and specified as input for the synthesis of the four-bar mechanism using four-position synthesis programmed in MATLAB TM and the link lengths calculated were input to Automated Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems (ADAMS) to simulate the behaviour of the mechanism from which the best design was selected. Results suggested that the method of four-position synthesis could be used to design an appropriate mechanism for the heaping operation. The mechanical advantage of the mechanisms obtained was in the range 0.5-2.1. Different parameters of interest like the output force were also obtained for each of the mechanisms.

Advanced Materials Research, 2009

The paper work is aimed at using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to develop window based design softwa... more The paper work is aimed at using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to develop window based design software that combines flexibility with adequate users interface for the design of chain drives as an engineering transmission element. The chain drives considered are of two types; silent and roller. The calculations are programmed either through ‘known torque’ or ‘through guess pitch value’. The design software combines computational with sketch template in a single process to generate the required parameters of the chain drives. The package was tested with a number of case studies and the results obtained were quite satisfactory.

International journal of industrial engineering and management, Sep 30, 2022

Energy usage is a great concern for industrialists because it is a prime determinant of productio... more Energy usage is a great concern for industrialists because it is a prime determinant of production cost. When energy consumption becomes a challenge, the industrial production process remains unsustainable. Hence, the need for automating the process control model of the plantain flour processing facility for its energy consumption optimization. Time and motion study was used on the plantain processing plant on a modular basis to develop the control system. The model control system for the plant was simulated and implemented. Experimental runs were carried out, and a system response time of 30 milliseconds was computed. In comparison, the results show that using the automated facility saved 30% more energy than running the plant manually. Thus, contributing control process model as an energy optimization concept for plantain flour plant facility.

Mindanao Journal of Science and Technology, Jun 22, 2021

International Journal of Integrated Engineering, Jan 7, 2021

A plantain flour process plant consisting of washing, grating, drying, milling and sieving machin... more A plantain flour process plant consisting of washing, grating, drying, milling and sieving machines could be set up in a single static layout pattern. But for greater productivity, more efficient use of facility, reduction in processing time and elimination of bottlenecks along the process plant could be obtained. An improved facility layout model was developed for a plantain flour process plant using data from an existing process plant by considering: the breakeven point for investment; and reliability of the facility layout. Comparison was made using data from the initial layout pattern (static layout) with the dynamic layout pattern to aid robust modelling. Considerable level of reduction in the cost of material handling was achieved as congestion along the process plant was minimized and processing time in the dynamic layout generated was much reduced. The breakeven analysis result reflects the extent of improvement per throughput. Testing the models with throughput sizes of 21.87 kg, 43.74 kg, 65.62 kg, 87.49 kg and 109.36 kg, the average processing time to breakeven point was 4703.9 minutes, and this was drastically reduced by 36 % to an average of 3008.5 minutes when the improved facility layout model was introduced.

Plantain is used for the management of type II diabetes. Plantain is usually processed into value... more Plantain is used for the management of type II diabetes. Plantain is usually processed into value-added and storable products, such as flour, in order to extend its shelf-life and make it available for consumption all the year round. Processing plantain into flour requires that its size be reduced before drying in order to increase its drying rate, reduce its processing time, and prevent microbial growth and decay. This paper presents conceptual design and finite element analysis (FEA) of a machine for particulating plantain in a plant that processes unripe plantain into flour. The machine consists of a hopper with cover, a particulating drum, a shaft, a belt drive, an electric motor, a pulley, a delivery chute and a support frame. Model for the machine was developed using Solid Works Computer Aided Design (CAD) application software. Appropriate materials were selected for its component parts and their design analysis was done. Its functionality and structural stability were evaluat...

Maintenance practices play great role in industrial facilities management and its productivity in... more Maintenance practices play great role in industrial facilities management and its productivity index. This research work therefore presents the assessment of maintenance activities being observed in some selected wood and log processing industries (sawmills) in Ekiti and Osun states in Nigeria so as to rate their practices and proffer solutions as deem fit. The appraisal metric used hinges on maintenance practice factor (MPF) and maintenance practice contributions (MPC). The study made use of oral interviews and structured questionnaire administered to fifty (50) sawmills in which twenty (20) respondents wholeheartedly cooperated in responding to the questionnaires. Statistical detailed analysis of the data carried out showed that only 30% of the respondents in the maintenance department rated the maintenance practices carried out in the maintenance of the equipment and machineries as satisfactory while 70% rated it good. 63.3 % of the maintenance strategy used in the sawmill indust...

This chapter proposes machine signature integrity and its violation detection as an approach to f... more This chapter proposes machine signature integrity and its violation detection as an approach to fault diagnostic. It uses machine history and its present (in situ) data through monitoring as potent tool in detecting incipient faults. This monitoring program is a function of set parameters that put in place as watch dog to provide signals or alert whenever there is fault initiation on the machine system. A robust flowchart on how fault could be detected, isolated, and identified along with its algorithm for the diagnostic program inherent on vibration-induced faults is presented, and if these algorithms are rightly appropriated, fault will not only be detected, but isolated and identified in any production system or manufacturing.

Research on Engineering Structures and Materials, 2021

Production Engineering Archives, 2021

Diabetes, adjudged a risk factor for coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19), can be manag... more Diabetes, adjudged a risk factor for coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19), can be managed through consumption of plantain and its associated products. Plantain is usually processed into flour and other storable/value-added products due to its very short shelf-life. To process unripe plantain pulps into flour, there is a need for size reduction after drying. This paper presents the development and performance evaluation of a size reduction unit for pulverizing, sieving and conveying material to the next processing stage in a plantain flour process plant. Its model was developed using solidworks application software. After design analysis, the model was simulated to establish its suitability/adequacy for fabrication. The pulverizer was fabricated using locally available materials. Its performance evaluation gave 400kg/h throughput, 96% crushing efficiency and 96% efficiency based on the required particle size. The average particle size of flour obtained was 236μm using 500μm...

International Journal of Integrated Engineering, 2018

Journal of Industrial Engineering International, 2017

The reconfigurable vibrating screen (RVS) machine is an innovative beneficiation machine designed... more The reconfigurable vibrating screen (RVS) machine is an innovative beneficiation machine designed for screening different mineral particles of varying sizes and volumes required by the customers' through the geometric transformation of its screen structure. The successful RVS machine upkeep requires its continuous, availability, reliability and maintainability. The RVS machine downtime, which could erupt from its breakdown and repair, must also be reduced to the barest minimum. This means, there is a need to design and develop a maintenance system model that could be used to effectively maintain the RVS machine when utilized in surface and underground mines. In view of this, this paper aims to develop a maintenance system model that could be used to effectively maintain the RVS machine when used in surface and underground mines. The maintenance system model unfolds the predictive (i.e. diagnosis and prognosis) algorithms, the e-maintenance strategic tools as well as the dynamic maintenance strategic algorithms required to effectively maintain the RVS machine. Four different case studies were presented in this paper to illustrate the applicability of this maintenance system model in maintaining and managing the RVS machine when utilized in the mining industries.

Journal of Industrial Engineering International, 2017

The article is centred on software system development for manufacturing company that produces pol... more The article is centred on software system development for manufacturing company that produces polyethylene bags using mostly conventional machines in a competitive world where each business enterprise desires to stand tall. This is meant to assist in gaining market shares, taking maintenance and production decisions by the dynamism and flexibilities embedded in the package as customers' demand varies under the duress of meeting the set goals. The production and machine condition monitoring software (PMCMS) is programmed in C# and designed in such a way to support hardware integration, real-time machine conditions monitoring, which is based on condition maintenance approach, maintenance decision suggestions and suitable production strategies as the demand for products keeps changing in a highly competitive environment. PMCMS works with an embedded device which feeds it with data from the various machines being monitored at the workstation, and the data are read at the base station through transmission via a wireless transceiver and stored in a database. A case study was used in the implementation of the developed system, and the results show that it can monitor the machine's health condition effectively by displaying machines' health status, gives repair suggestions to probable faults, decides strategy for both production methods and maintenance, and, thus, can enhance maintenance performance obviously.

2015 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2015

The paper is aimed at analysing and improving the sorting, packaging and delivery operations at a... more The paper is aimed at analysing and improving the sorting, packaging and delivery operations at a cucumber packaging industry. Packaging operation of a farm in Mpumalanga, South Africa has been studied in detail and possible areas of improvement are proposed. It is a usual practice for farms in South Africa to have packaging centre where farm produce is been sorted, packaged and delivered for various customers across the country. Perishable farm produce requires special handling, care and timely delivery to end users or consumers so as to keep to the limit of it shelf life. The farm under consideration has been having a lot of damages as a result of improper and poor packaging operation. Therefore, the study makes use of Lean Six Sigma tools to analyse and quantify the efficiency of the current packaging system and proffers a better and profitable approach in minimising waste. The result shows that simple changes in system arrangement and concepts can significantly reduce the damages, increase number of deliveries and improve system performance measures.

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2015

The purpose of this paper is to use product demand or sales turnout of products in a competitive ... more The purpose of this paper is to use product demand or sales turnout of products in a competitive environment as an indicator to suggest maintenance strategies for machinery. The model takes account of singular products from several companies or industries, thus giving room for a share factor in the market population. The model is developed based on the factors of maintenance severity, production capacity, output production, production strategies and demand for the product. It also integrates conventional manufacturing, just-in-time (JIT) and automation with maintenance cultures such as predictive, preventive and breakdown, coupled with a spare parts inventory. The software was developed using C# to ease and consolidate the entire research. Production data and product turnout for the same products for twelve weeks from one industry with were collected and analysed to validate this concept. The output of the integrated maintenance product demand model is dynamic, as the suggested maintenance strategy based on product demand varies with time. The model formulated was able to assist in taking appropriate maintenance decisions on machinery, thereby reducing the mean time to failure (MTTF) and thus correcting the products backlog and enhancing overall equipment effectiveness, management of machinery, products flow and materials inventory.

2015 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM), 2015

The height adjustable wheel chair focuses on meeting the needs of paraplegics' patients and t... more The height adjustable wheel chair focuses on meeting the needs of paraplegics' patients and the poor disabled persons who desire to perform certain tasks independently and privately, such as picking items from shelves, cupboard and wardrobes at the standing height of average human being. Hence, an appropriate wheelchair to meet their need has been designed using low cost and readily available materials to achieve this product. The existing wheelchair was evaluated before its modification was done in justifying the established improvement. To achieve this, the wheel chair was redesigned with a low centre of gravity to enhance stability with the introduction of sizeable hydraulic jack to aid height adjustment. Performance evaluation of the developed wheelchair was carried out to ensure standardization in meeting the needs of the intended users. On basis of ease of operation to a chosen height of 2m using pulses generated, 79 pulses/ minutes was recorded for the improved wheelchair as against the 95 pulses/minutes of the existing wheelchair. Also it takes 28 seconds and 36 seconds for the modified and existing wheelchairs to reach the set height respectively. It offers confinement for adjustment to desired height position and provides mobility while at chosen elevated position.

Journal of Industrial Engineering International, 2015

Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public.

Environment and Water Resource Management / 813: Modelling and Simulation / 814: Power and Energy Systems / 815: Health Informatics, 2014

Farm mechanisation is a practice of doing work on agricultural farms by means of machinery instea... more Farm mechanisation is a practice of doing work on agricultural farms by means of machinery instead of human or animal labour. Land preparation, tillage, planting and harvesting operations are all farm practices that have been mechanized. Three forms of bed preparation are commonly used in farming namely; flat, heaps and ridges. Ridge-making has been mechanised, leaving heaping to be done manually using the locally fabricated handmade hoe. In this research work, an attempt is made to design a fourbar mechanism to give the required working part motion for soil heaping operation. The angles and distance of the four positions were obtained and specified as input for the synthesis of the four-bar mechanism using four-position synthesis programmed in MATLAB TM and the link lengths calculated were input to Automated Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems (ADAMS) to simulate the behaviour of the mechanism from which the best design was selected. Results suggested that the method of four-position synthesis could be used to design an appropriate mechanism for the heaping operation. The mechanical advantage of the mechanisms obtained was in the range 0.5-2.1. Different parameters of interest like the output force were also obtained for each of the mechanisms.