Introduction
Fast food and restaurants go through millions of pounds of potato a year. Many restaurants boast about having fresh cut french fries. Most machines are a hand lever system designed to cut a single potato. If a restaurant is popular and is busy the workers will be overwhelmed with orders if they only have a hand system. The idea is to be able to attach a simple offset crank and slider to automate the system to alleviate and increase production.
While designing a mechanical potato slicer, it is important to think about the machine’s overall dimensions, the speed and power of the motor, the blades’ material and number, and any safety precautions, such as guards or automatic shutoffs. Generally, the objective of a mechanical potato slicer project is to build a machine that can slice potatoes rapidly and correctly, replacing the need for human labor while increasing both the uniformity and quality of the slices produced.
Problem Statement
Potato slicing machinery could be used to improve the processing procedure during preparation of potato chips and French fries. The research by Hoque and Saha (2017) introduced the idea and tested its validity in Bangladesh. Reducing post-harvest losses may be possible via the dissemination of small-scale potato processing equipment, such as potato slices, in potato-growing areas (Hoque and Saha, 2017). It is difficult to start a small-scale potato processing business in Bangladesh because of the high cost of entry and the unavailability of high-capacity potato processing equipment (Hoque and Saha, 2017). However, this mechanism might be used for French fries.
Millions of pounds of potatoes are used annually by fast food businesses and restaurants, and many of them advertise that their French fries are cut fresh daily. Current potato cutting relies on a hand lever method that could be more active, efficient, and dangerous because of worker fatigue. Fatigue increases the danger of cutting potatoes since it raises the likelihood that the worker may make a mistake. Safety and output can both be improved by the potato slicer mechanism, but as the number of potatoes rises, so does the danger of exhaustion. The next crucial step, therefore, is to automate the crank so that the worker needs to position the potatoes rather than actuate the mechanism.
Method
In order to build and construct an efficient and effective mechanism, the potato slicer project will need a number of different studies and techniques. In order to complete the task at hand, we shall use the following strategies: An examination of kinetics: The mechanism’s motion and the connections between its parts will be figured out by the kinematic analysis. Position, velocity, and acceleration analyses will be performed. The mechanism’s design, including the choice of links and sliders, their dimensions, and their location and motion, will be informed by a synthesis of these elements.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) will be performed to assess the mechanism’s robustness and resilience under a variety of loads (Szabó & BabuÅ¡ka, 2021). Moreover, the investigation will aid in perfecting the mechanism’s layout. Testing and prototyping will be utilized to confirm the mechanism’s design and operation. In order to guarantee that the mechanism can be made at an affordable price, several materials and production methods will be tested. In a nutshell, the objective of the potato slicer mechanism project is to create an automated system for slicing potatoes in a way that minimizes the need for human labor and maximizes productivity, health, and safety. In order to develop and optimize the mechanism, the suggested technique will use kinematic analysis, mechanism synthesis, finite element analysis (FEA), prototyping, and testing.
References
Hoque, M. A., & Saha, K. K. (2017). Design and development of a manual potato cum sweet potato slicer. Journal of Science Technology and Environment Informatics, 5(2), 395–401. Web.
Szabó, B., & Babuška, I. (2021). Finite element analysis: Method, verification and validation. John Wiley & Sons.