Design and development of mechanical dried chillies compaction machine

Dried chillies are packed in gunny bags non-uniformly in different packing sizes. Dried chilies, being low bulk material occupies large volume, need to be compacted before it is bagged to gunny bags. Conventionally, dried chilies are compacted by labor in the field itself by tying gunny bag to a tripod stand and simultaneous filling of dried chilies and trampling by feet till overall weight of the bag reaches 40-45 kg. Conventional method is highly labor intensive involves drudgery, low productive (3 laborers can compact a quantum of 8 bags per hour) and causes burning sensation to the labor. An attempt has been made to design and develop portable mechanical machine to compact dry chilies and bag. Evaluation of developed machine has been conducted at farmer’s field in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh India. The capacity of the developed machine was found to be 18 bags/h, technically feasible and economically viable. There is a saving of Rs 9.68 per bag in mechanized compaction and bagging process with an improvement in productivity over 150%.