ABSTRACT

A motorized cassava tuber chipping machine was designed, constructed and evaluated.  The objectives of the research are to investigate the effect of moisture content and speed on the chipping sizes, efficiency, throughput and machine capacities. Results obtained showed that the cassava initial moisture content significantly affected the chipping size, machine capacity and throughput capacity but not chipping efficiency within the tested moisture content range of 53 to 68 % wet basis. The machine speed affected the chipping size, chipping efficiency, machine and throughput capacity. The average chipping size for the cassava chips at the four ranges of moisture content, speeds and constant feed rate of 89±26.6 kg/hr ranged from 0.56 to 0.96 cm. The average chipping efficiency ranged from 60 to 90 % while the throughput capacities of the machine ranged from 49 to118 kg/hr. Also for the machine capacity the average values obtained were 44 to 100 kg/hr.