title: Development of a lemon cutting machine.
abstract: Cutting of lemon and other similar fruits is conventionally done manually by sharp knife, which is labor intensive and often un-hygienic. In the present work, a device has been designed and developed for cutting of lemon hygienically into four pieces of similar shape based on stationery cutters and rotating centralizing/locating slit plate concept. Machine has a unique knife assembly consisting of two bird wing shaped knives, joined by welding perpendicularly to a vertical knife, so that the lemon can be cut into four pieces in a single sweep. Six numbers of rotating centralizing/locating slit plates are welded on to the side plates and the plates carry a groove on its inner face, to enable the wing shaped knife to complete the horizontal cut. The rotating slit plates, having centralizing angle of 90°, are rotated by an electric geared motor. The prototype machine has capacity of over 5,000 lemons/h with a power consumption of 0.11 kW.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Engineering, CSIR- Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, 570 020 India.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hrishikesh Tavanandi
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Engineering, CSIR- Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, 570 020 India.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Deepak
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Engineering, CSIR- Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, 570 020 India.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Venkateshmurthy
authors.affiliation: Department of Food Engineering, CSIR- Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, 570 020 India.
authors.forename: K S M S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Raghavarao
keywords: Centralizing disc; Design development; Lemon cutting machine; Prototype; Wing shaped knife