Biosystems Engineering (2002) 83 (4), 413421 doi:10.1006/bioe.2002.0133, available online at http://www.idealibrary.

com on PM}Power and Machinery

Effect of Type of Drum, Drum Speed and Feed Rate on Sunower Threshing
S. Sudajana; V.M. Salokhea; K. Triratanasirichaib
a

Agricultural & Aquatic Systems and Engineering Program, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand; e-mail of corresponding author: salokhe@ait.ac.th b Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Thailand; e-mail: kittri@kku1.kku.ac.th (Received 15 February 2002; accepted in revised form 15 August 2002)

A study was conducted to develop a threshing unit for a sunower thresher. The performance was evaluated in terms of output capacity, threshing efciency, grain damage, grain losses, grain and material other than grain (MOG) separation, power requirement and specic energy consumption against different drum types, drum speeds and feed rates. The sunower threshing capacity of a rasp bar drum was higher than peg tooth type, both with open and closed threshing drums. The threshing efciency was found to be higher than 99%. Visible grain damage increased with an increase in threshing drum speed and feed rate for each threshing drum. The minimum specic energy consumption could be achieved with the rasp bar drum at all speeds and feed rates. The rasp bar drum showed reductions in the proportions of MOG passing through the concave compared to the both peg tooth types, i.e. with open threshing drum and closed threshing drum. The total grain separated by the rasp bar drum was higher than 99%. At 3000 kghead h1 feed rate and 750 min1 drum speed, rasp bar drum gave higher output capacity, threshing efciency, lower grain damage and specic energy consumption. # 2002 Silsoe Research Institute. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

1. Introduction Sunower (Helianthus annuus L.) is one of the worlds most important oilseed crops. Sunower oil is considered to be of very high quality (Downey et al., 1989). The oil content of sunower is 40%, which is higher than any other oilseed crops (Rizvi et al., 1993). It is one of the important oilseed crops of Thailand. The area planted with sunower in Thailand has increased rapidly from 11; 984 ha in 1993 to 96; 000 ha in 1999, and it is expected to increase further (OAE, 2000). This has been made possible largely due to the encouragement and establishment of infrastructure by the government and private sectors (Aiamgrasin, 1996). Nowadays, no thresher to thresh local sunower is available in Thailand. Farmers in some areas of Thailand thresh sunower using a rice or soya bean thresher. However, the results obtained indicated that these threshers are not appropriate for threshing sunower, as grain damage may be as much as 410%, cleaning efciency only 8792%, and grain losses some 313%. Some threshers recorded grain losses of 2035% (Peeneejdangang, 1999). Moreover, at times, no thresher is available
1537-5110/02/$35.00

because other crops are being harvested and threshed at the same time. One of the biggest constraints for increasing the production area of oilseed crop in Thailand has been the lack of suitable machinery during cultivation and after harvest of these crops. In order to increase sunower production, the development of a sunower thresher has therefore become important. The threshing unit plays a key role in determining the performance of a thresher. Therefore, this study was conducted to study the effect of threshing drum types, drum speeds and feed rates; to determine the best threshing drum type, drum speed and feed rate; and to determine the grain and material other than grain (MOG) separation over the length of the threshing drum (Sudajan, 2002).

2. Literature review Sharma and Devnani (1979) determined the effect of cylinder tip speed and concave clearance of a rasp bar thresher on threshing of sunower. Threshing trials were carried out by varying the cylinder tip speed from 481
413 # 2002 Silsoe Research Institute. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

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to 817 m s1 and concave clearance from 4 to 12 mm. All threshing parameters were highly correlated with the cylinder tip speed and concave clearance. The germination percentage was directly proportional to the concave clearance and inversely proportional to the cylinder tip speed. Jadhav and Deshpande (1990) developed a pedaloperated sunower thresher. The manually operated hold-on sunower thresher consisted principally of threshing, cleaning and power transmission units. When fresh heads were threshed, the output capacity, threshing efciency and cleaning efciency were about 40 kgseed h1 , 100% and 9698%, respectively. Rizvi et al. (1993) compared the performance of different threshing drums for sunower threshing. The spike/peg tooth, rasp bar and rubber strip cylinder with their respective concaves were used. The study showed that the peg-type cylinder with a speed range of 400500 min1 and a concave clearance range from 2530 mm can be used for a sunower threshing unit. Naravani and Panwar (1994) studied the effects of the impact mode of threshing on the threshability of a sunower crop. The results showed that threshing efciency increased as the impact energy increased at seed moisture contents ranging from 576 to 1356% wet basis (w.b.). A threshing efciency of 71% with 97% w.b. seed moisture content at an energy level of 206 N m was observed. Bansal et al. (1994) evaluated different sunower threshers. Sunower threshers based on axial ow designs were mostly used. It was concluded that sunower should be threshed at a cylinder speed of 65 m s1 with a feed rate of 15002000 kghead h1 at a grain moisture content of 30% w.b. Bhutta et al. (1997) compared the performance of a locally made sunower thresher and a combine harvester. The thresher was operated with a tractor power-take-off (PTO). The power-operated sunower thresher had an output capacity of 447 kgseed h1 with a threshing efciency of 973% and a breakage of 487%. The combine harvester threshing drum consisted of eight rasp bars 104 m in length and was 600 mm in diameter. The combine harvester had an output capacity of 1000 kgseed h1 with a threshing efciency of 987% and breakage of 026%. Anil et al. (1998) designed and developed a prototype threshing machine for sunower seeds, using basic principles adopted for cereal threshers. Test results indicated that the optimal thresher performance was achieved at 913% moisture content, 180 kg h1 feed rate and 500 min1 cylinder speed. Sudajan et al. (2001) determined some of the physical properties of both sunower seed and head at various moisture levels for use in the design of a prototype sunower thresher. Commonly used sunower varieties in Thailand, Hysun-33, Pioneer Jumbo and Cargill-3322, were used by them.

3. Materials and methods The sunower threshing unit (Fig. 1) operates on the principle of axial ow movement of the material. The threshing mechanism consisted of a threshing drum, which rotates inside a two section concave. The concave was made of steel plate, with an elliptical hole of 11 mm by 60 mm. The distance between adjacent holes was 11 mm, and between the hole axes was 22 mm. The concave clearance was xed at about 35 mm, which had proved satisfactory in the preliminary tests. The length of the concave of the threshing unit was 096 m. To determine the separation over the length of the threshing drum, the concave was divided into six equal sections by metal sheets underneath the concave. Sections 1 and 2 (feed and threshing section) covered the concave over the length of the feed opening and threshing; Sections 35 were the threshing, separating and conveying sections, and Section 6 at the outlet section separated the rest of the concave into two parts. Six chutes were constructed underneath the concave to collect the separated material from each section. A plastic container was used to collect the material ejected from the straw outlet. Three threshing drums used were a peg tooth type with an open threshing drum a peg tooth type with a closed threshing drum and a rasp bar type (Fig. 2). The peg tooth open threshing drum was constructed using 48 pegs arranged in four rows on the surface of the threshing drum. The pegs were 50 mm in height and were cut from a 19 mm by 19 mm mild steel square. They were xed on a drum with the help of nuts and bolts in a helical arrangement. The distance between each tooth was 60 mm. The diameter and length of

Chutes:

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Fig. 1. Sunower threshing unit

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Fig. 2. Threshing drum types: peg tooth with an open threshing drum (left), peg tooth with a closed threshing drum (middle) and rasp bar drum (right)

threshing drum were 280 and 920 mm, respectively. The peg tooth drum with a closed threshing drum was constructed in the same way. A rasp bar, closed threshing drum had four equidistant stationary bars built on the periphery of the drum in a parallel orientation. Four threshing drum speeds of 550, 750, 950 and 1150 min1 , equivalent to peripheral velocities of 80; 109; 139 and 168 m s1 , respectively, were used. The thresher was powered by tractor PTO (Series 40 Tractor; Model 6640) and the speed was set by tractor engine throttle. The power from the tractor PTO was transmitted to the threshing drum by use of pulleys and V-belts. The four feed rates, 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 , were used for testing. The independent variables studied were feeding belt speed and feed rate. Material was loaded on the belt conveyor and fed into the hopper. The drive to the belt conveyor was provided and controlled from a 56 kW variable-speed electric motor. The commonly grown sunower variety, Hysun-33, was used for this experiment. It was harvested by the traditional method. The moisture content of the grain, head and straw was determined by the oven-drying method (ASAE, 1983). The average moisture contents of seeds and straw were 726 and 1305% w.b., respectively. The average ratio of seed to straw was 125 on dry basis (d.b). Threshing drum speed was measured using a proximity switch. The torque transducer was used to measure the torque in this experiment. The strain amplier amplied the output signals received from the transducer and recorded. The torque transducer was calibrated in static condition. The power requirement was calculated by using the formula given by Kepner et al. (1978) and Hunt (1995). The following performance indicators were used for the evaluation (RNAM Test code, 1995): output

capacity, threshing efciency, grain damage, grain loss, power requirement, grain and MOG separation and specic energy consumption. The performance of the developed threshing unit was analysed against different threshing drums, threshing speeds and feed rates by using a randomised complete block design (RCBD) of a 3 by 4 by 4 factorial experiment with three replications in each treatment, and comparison between treatment means by the least signicant difference (LSD) at the 5% level (Box et al., 1978; Gomez & Gomez, 1984). For each threshing performance test, sunower heads were fed to the threshing unit at a particular combination of threshing drum type, drum speed and feed rate. After the test run, the samples collected from chutes 16 were cleaned to determine grain and MOG separation over the concave length. The samples of threshed grain, broken pieces of head, the straw passed down through concave openings and the material ejected from the straw outlet were collected and separated. After mixing the grain from chutes 16, visual analysis of grain damage was conducted.

4. Results and discussion 4.1. Effect of type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate on capacity The analysis of variance showed that the threshing drum type (A), drum speed (B) and feed rate (C) signicantly affected threshing capacity (Table 1). It was observed that the effect of drum type was the most signicant, followed by drum speed and feed rate. Among the rst-order interactions, the order of importance was AB, AC and BC, all being signicant at the 1% level of signicance. Among the second-order interactions, ABC was highly signicant. Figure 3 shows the effect of drum speed on the capacity of individual threshing drum and four feed rates. The results indicated that the capacity of the rasp bar drum was higher than both peg tooth types throughout the range of drum speeds and at all feed rates. At 1000 kghead h1 feed rate, the capacity of the rasp bar drum increased from 531577 kg h1 as drum speed increased from 550 to 950 min1 , and it decreased slightly when the drum speed increased to 1150 min1 . At 2000, 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 feed rates, the capacity of the rasp bar drum increased rapidly with drum speed variation from 550 to 750 min1 , then showed little difference with further increases of drum speed from 750 to 950 min1 . It slightly decreased when the drum speed increased to 1150 min1 except at 4000 kghead h1 feed rate. The capacity of the rasp bar drum at 2000, 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 feed rates

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Table 1 Analysis of variance of the results of the performance of the sunower threshing unit Source of variation Replication Drum type (A) Drum speed (B) Feed rate (C) AB AC BC ABC Error
* * Highly

df Capacity 2 2 3 3 6 6 9 18 94 441:379 * * 71:067 * * 46:586 * * 24:983 * * 12:229 * * 9:664 * * 3:371 * *

F-value Threshing efciency 4:629 * 2.643ns 0.133ns 7:681 * * 3:607 * * 2:751 * * 1:943 * Grain damage 44:455 * * 66:946 * * 7:390 * * 3:308 * * 0.889ns 3:246 * * 2:091 * Grain loss 20:611 * * 2:455 * 40:576 * * 6:070 * * 2:522 * 0.735ns 1.054ns

signicant at 1% level; * signicant at 5% level; ns, non-signicant; df, degrees of freedom.

increased from 532 to 879, 450 to 1038 and 416 to 1015 kg h1 , respectively, with drum speed variation from 550 to 750 min1 . However, the mean capacities of both peg tooth types showed little difference at all drum speeds and feed rates. The capacities of the peg tooth with an open threshing drum and the peg tooth with a closed threshing drum were between 354541 and 338 575 kg=h1 , respectively. The highest threshing capacity was obtained from the tests carried out with the rasp bar drum, which had a rough surface (corrugated bar) on the periphery of the drum. Roughness on the rasp bar may have produced more rubbing and shearing between the rasp bar and the material being threshed than for other drum types. On the other hand, threshing material struck by a peg tooth can bounce off in any direction, depending on the angle of the strike. Owing to the distance between each tooth and the space between the peg tooth and the concave clearance in the upper part of the threshing unit, no coherent crop mat moving around the drum was found. The movement of the crop in an axial direction was not continuous, with the crop often moving back axially in the direction of the feed section. Figure 4 shows that, as feed rate was increased, the capacity generally increased at 750, 950 and 1150 min1 drum speeds for all threshing drums. The capacity of the rasp bar drum rapidly increased as the feed rate increased from 1000 to 4000 kghead h1 . From the above results, the best capacity 1038 kg h1 was recorded with the rasp bar drum at 3000 kghead h1 feed rate and 750 min1 109 m s1 drum speed.

order statistical interactions, the order of importance was drum type and drum speed (AB), drum type and feed rate (AC), and drum speed and feed rate (BC), all being signicant at the 1% level. Among the secondorder interactions between threshing drum type, drum speed and feed rate, ABC was signicantly different at the 5% level. Comparison among treatment means using LSD showed that at 2000, 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 feed rate with 750 and 950 min1 drum speed, the threshing efciency of the three types of drums did not differ signicantly. Test results indicated that threshing efciency was within a narrow range of 9977100%, for the range of variables studied. This was because, for all threshing drums, drum speeds and feed rates, the energy given to the ear head and grain sufciently increased sunower threshing. This might be due to sunower seeds adhering loose to the ower head at the low seed moisture content. The attaching force between seed and ower head might get reduced and hence seeds might get separated easily. This might have resulted in a higher threshing efciency.

4.3. Effect of type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate on grain damage Table 1 indicates that the analysis of variance of the main effects of the type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate signicantly affected grain damage at the 1% level. The effect of drum speed on grain damage was the most signicant, followed by drum type and feed rate. Comparison between treatment means using LSD showed that at 1000 kghead h1 feed rate with the rasp bar type, the grain damage at 550, 750, 950 and 1150 min1 speeds did not differ signicantly for either type of peg tooth drums. At 2000 kghead h1 feed rate with the rasp bar drum, the grain damage at 750, 950 and

4.2. Effect of type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate on threshing efciency Table 1 shows that drum type affected the threshing efciency signicantly at the 5% level. Among the rst-

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Rasp bar drum

1200 1000 800 600 400

1200 Feed rate 1000 kg[head] h-1 1000 800 600

200 400 1200 1000 800 600 400 Capacity, kg h-1 Capacity, kg h-1 600 200 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 450 550 650 750 850 950 1050 1150 1250 Drum speed, min-1
200

Feed rate 2000 kg[head] h

-1

200 800 Peg tooth with an open threshing drum

Feed rate 3000 kg[head] h-1

400

200 800 Peg tooth with a closed threshing drum Feed rate 4000 kg[head] h-1

600

400

500

1500

2500 h-1

3500

4500

Feed rate, kg[head]

Fig. 3. Effect of drum speed and drum type on capacity at different feed rates (^, rasp bar drum; &, peg tooth with an open threshing drum; 4, peg tooth with a closed threshing drum)

Fig. 4. Effect of feed rate and drum speed on capacity at different threshing drums (^; 550 min1 ; &; 750 min1 ; m; 950 min1 ; ; 1150 min1

1150 min1 drum speeds was not signicantly different from the other two types. The other pairs of interactions showed statistically signicant difference. At 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 feed rates with the rasp bar drum, the grain damage at 750, 950 and 1150 min1 drum speeds was signicantly different from that found for other drums. The mean grain damage by the rasp bar type at 550, 750 and 950 min1 drum speeds did not differ signicantly from 1000 to 3000 kghead h1 feed rates. The mean grain damage by the peg tooth with an open threshing drum did not differ signicantly from 1000 to 4000 kghead h1 feed rates at 550, 750 and 950 min1

drum speeds. The mean grain damage by the peg tooth type with a closed threshing drum did not signicantly differ from 1000 to 4000 kghead h1 feed rates at each drum speed. Figure 5 shows the effect of drum speed on the grain damage of individual threshing drum at four feed rates. The results indicated that the grain damage increased with an increase in drum speed for all drums and feed rates. This increase was due to higher impact levels imparted to the crop during threshing at higher drum speeds. The grain damage by the rasp bar type was higher than that caused by the other two types. The

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4 Feed rate 1000 kg[head] h -1 3 2 1 0 4 Feed rate 2000 kg[head] h -1 3 2 Grain damage, % 1 0 4 Feed rate 3000 kg[head] h -1 3 2 1 0 4 Feed rate 4000 kg[head] h -1 3 2 1 0 450

S. SUDAJAN ET AL.

to 149% with an increase of drum speed from 550 to 1150 min1 . At a feed rate of 3000 kghead h1 , the grain damage for the rasp bar type increased gradually from 098 to 252% with increases in drum speed, while it increased slightly from 074 to 167 and 117 to 175% for open and closed peg tooth drums, respectively. At a feed rate of 4000 kghead h1 , the grain damage caused by the rasp bar drum rapidly increased from 092 to 208% with an increase of drum speed from 550 to 750 min1 , and it slightly increased with further increase in speed variation from 750 to 1150 min1 . From the above results, it can be observed that the grain damage was less than 2% when the drum speed increased from 550 to 950 min1 (806 to 1393 m s1 and 1000 to 3000 kg head h1 feed rate. The recommended parameters are those at which the visible grain damage should be within 2% (King & Riddolls, 1960; Sharma & Devnani, 1979; Vejasit, 1991) to maintain better storage qualities. 4.4. Effect of type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate on grain losses Table 1 shows the analysis of variance of the main effects on grain losses. Test results showed that the effect of feed rate was the most signicant, followed by drum type and drum speed. Comparison between treatment means of grain losses using LSD showed that the grain losses did not differ signicantly at 20004000 kghead h1 feed rate for all threshing drum types. Grain losses at 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 feed rates showed a similar trend. Grain losses when drum speed increased from 550 to 1150 min1 did not differ signicantly among the three drum types. Test results indicated that the grain losses were between 015 and 122% for all drum types, drum speeds and feed rates.
1050 1150 1250

550

650

750

850

950

Drum speed, min-1

Fig. 5. Effect of drum speed and drum type on grain damage at different feed rates (^, rasp bar drum; &, peg tooth with an open threshing drum; n, peg tooth with a closed threshing drum)

4.5. Effect of type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate on power requirement and specic energy consumption The type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate signicantly affected the power requirement and specic energy consumption at the 1% level of signicance. The effect of drum speed was the most signicant on power requirement, followed by feed rate and drum type. The type of drum affected specic energy consumption most signicantly, followed by drum speed and feed rate. The power required by different threshing drums at different drum speeds and feed rates is shown in Fig. 6. It was observed that the power requirement of the threshing unit increased as the speed of threshing drum was increased. The power requirement of drum increased with drum speed because of the increased feed rate

reason for this is in line with the ndings explained in the above section (rough surface on the rasp bar). At a feed rate of 1000 kghead h1 , the grain damage by all drums slightly increased from 124 to 183, 080 to 118% and 120 to 126% with an increase in drum speed from 550 to 950 min1 . The grain damage increased from 183 to 342, 128 to 249 and 126 to 186% with an increase in drum speed from 950 to 1150 min1 . At a feed rate of 2000 kghead h1 , the grain damage by all three types slightly increased from 123 to 193, 056 to 152 and 084

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4 3 2 1 0 5

Feed rate 1000 kg[head] h-1

Feed rate 2000 kg[head] h-1 4 3 2 Power requirement, kW 1 0 5 Feed rate 3000 kg[head] h-1 4 3 2 1 0 5 Feed rate 4000 kg[head] h-1 4 3 2 1 0 450

550

650

750 850 950 1050 1150 1250 Drum speed, min-1

Fig. 6. Effect of drum speed and drum type on power requirement at different feed rates (^, rasp bar drum; &, peg tooth with an open threshing drum; 4, peg tooth with a closed threshing drum)

Fig. 7. Effect of drum speed and drum type on specic energy consumption at different feed rates (^, rasp bar drum; &, peg tooth with an open threshing drum; 4, peg tooth with a closed threshing drum).

which accounted for the extra energy required for threshing the material. The increase in feed rate required greater compression of the material as it passed between the threshing drum and concave causing an increase in power requirement. The average power requirement for the rasp bar type at 3000 kghead h1 feed rate was between 180 and 400 kW, when the drum speed was increased from 550 to 1150 min1 (806 to 1686 m s1 . For the two peg tooth drums, these values were 182 400 kW (open drum), and 217345 kW (closed drum).

The relationship between specic energy consumption and the speed of the threshing drum is shown in Fig. 7. It was observed that specic energy consumption for sunower threshing was lowest for the rasp bar drum at all feed rates and drum speeds. The specic energy consumption of the rasp bar drum was lowest at about 750 min1 109 m s1 drum speed and at 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 feed rates. The specic energy consumptions were 301 and 291 kWh t1 at 3000 and 4000 kghead h1 feed rates, respectively.

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Cumulative separable grain-MOG, % 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 (1) 160 320 480 640 Length of the concave, mm (2) (3) (4) (5) 800

S. SUDAJAN ET AL.

960 (6)

Chute section no.

increase of the concave length. This means that the percentage of total MOG separated at the straw outlet was about 5568% for the rasp bar, 3896% for peg tooth open drum and 3355% for peg tooth closed drum. The reason for the low MOG separated by the rasp bar drum was the rubbing and cushioning effects which did not make ne straw. These ndings are in conformity with those reported by John Deere Service Publication (1973); Klenin et al. (1986), Majumdar (1986) and Pandey et al. (1997). The important observations at the straw outlet indicated that the rejected material by rasp bar type was greater than both type of peg tooth drums. This indicated that threshing of sunower with the rasp bar drum could reduce the MOG on the cleaning system. However, the percentage of grain losses was less than 1% for all threshing drum types.

Fig. 8. Cumulative percentage of separable grain and material other than grain (MOG) versus the length of the concave with 3000 kghead h1 feed rate and 750 min1 drum speed (^, rasp bar drum, grain separation; &, peg tooth with an open threshing drum, grain separation; m, peg tooth with a closed threshing drum, grain separation; }, rasp bar drum, MOG separation; &, peg tooth with an open threshing drum, MOG separation; 4, peg tooth with a closed threshing drum, MOG separation)

5. Conclusions The type of threshing drum, drum speed and feed rate affected the output capacity, threshing efciency, grain damage and grain losses during sunower threshing. The capacity of the rasp bar drum was higher than the peg tooth type with an open threshing drum and the peg tooth type with a closed threshing drum at all drum speeds and feed rates. The threshing efciency was found to be in the range of 9977100% for all threshing drums, drum speeds and feed rates. The lowest specic energy consumption was by the rasp bar drum at all drum speeds and feed rates. The percentage of material other than grain (MOG) separated through the concave by the rasp bar drum was lower than for the other two types. This means that the rasp bar drum could reduce MOG load on the cleaning system. The rasp bar drum gave the best sunower threshing performance. The output capacity, threshing efciency, grain damage, grain losses and specic energy consumption at 750 min1 drum speed and 3000 kghead h1 feed rate were 1038 kg h1 , 9999%, 139%, 036% and 301 kWh t1 , respectively.

4.6. Effect of the threshing drum length on grain separation Figure 8 shows the relationship between the length of the concave and cumulative separable grain and MOG at a feed rate of 3000 kghead h1 and drum speed of 750 min1 . In Sections 1 and 2 (feed and threshing sections, the concave length of these sections was 320 mm of the concave, more than 65% (65146786%) of the grain was separated when both peg tooth drums were used, while less than 35% (282305%) was separated in Section 6 (outlet section). The percentage of the total grain separated by the concave increased rapidly from 0 to 8437% for the peg tooth open drum and 0 to 8834% for the peg tooth closed drum as the length of the concave increased from 0 to 480 mm (chutes 13). For the rasp bar drum, the percentage of total grain separated increased gradually from 0 to 8264% as the length of concave increased from 0 to 640 mm, and it increased from 8264 to 9965% when the concave length increased to 960 mm. The total grain separated in the outlet section was about 711%. On the other hand, the percentage of the total MOG separated was almost the same in all six sections. The percentage of MOG separated by the concave (through the concave) for the rasp bar type in each section was less than that for either peg tooth types. The percentage of MOG separated increased from 0 to 443% for the rasp bar type, 0 to 610% for peg tooth open drum and 0 to 664% for peg tooth closed drum. It increased with the

Acknowledgements This work was supported by grants from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand; Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand and the National Research Council of Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand.

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