SIMULATION OF OPTIMUM CHIPPING EFFICIENCY OF A COCOYAM CHIPPER

Abstract

A chipping efficiency model was simulated at three factor interaction of process variables in order to select a
combination of optimum crop and machine variables (cutting velocity, chipping slot size and feed rate) that will
yield minimum chip loss for the cocoyam chipper. Visual basic computer simulation programme was used to
identify the minimum chip loss for the various combinations of process variables and chipping efficiency. The
results obtained from the simulation revealed that a minimum chip loss of 0.1667 kg was obtained for the cocoyam
chipper at 4.91 m/s cutting velocity, 0.001 8 m2 chipping slot size and 0.056 kg/s feed rate. The chipping efficiency
obtained at this level was 85.2 %. These results gave room for good comparison with a minimum chip loss value of
0.1682 kg and 84.6 % chipping efficiency obtained from the actual measurement at same values of parameters for
the cocoyam chipper.