Abstract:
Most animals in Ethiopia are feed from natural pastures, but the importance of natural pasture is
gradually decline and there is lack of feed and machinery. Therefore, this project focused on motor
powered fodder producing machine in order to reduce and avoid those types of problems.
It is a simple machine and operated by one person with a motor power which reduces the total
machine cost. The machine consists different components, such as Main frame, crushing chamber,
hammer mill, sieve, feeding hopper, shaft and pulley. And in order to design and fabricate those
components of the machine, different methodologies and material selections were used with CAD
model of the machine.
The Crusher Machine rotor revolves in fixed direction by means of driving action of belt that
connects with motor. Above the shaft, there are sets of suspended impact plates.
Material enters into the crushing chamber through hopper. The large hammer mills fixed on the
shaft by means of pin strikes the feed material onto crushing chamber then the fodder fall in to the
sieve.
The test is performed only on a corn cobs, which was the stronger material in the fodder test. The
design focuses basically on the crop residues such as stalks, cobs and straws. The total efficiency
of the fodder producing machine is 93.33% which is good and the only loss of the fodder is 6.66%.
The total cost of the machine is 23,759 birr. This machine has different advantages in terms of
cost, improving time consuming, reducing labor force and reducing human power consumption.
Key words: Fodder, Crushing, Chamber, Hammer mill, Crop residues