DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF AN IMPROVED ELECTRO-MECHANICAL YAM POUNDING MACHINE

M. O. Oke; A. O. Akinbode; I. L. Sadiq; K. A. Sulaiman; S. A. Olaniyan; J. B. Hussein

M. O. Oke Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria
A. O. Akinbode Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria
I. L. Sadiq Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria
K. A. Sulaiman Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria
S. A. Olaniyan Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria
J. B. Hussein Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria

Keywords: yam, pounding, efficiency, percentage lump, pounding capacity

Abstract

Yam is one of the oldest known recipes to man, which belongs to the class of carbohydrate and has been a part of the African meals for centuries. Pounded yam is generally accepted food prepared from yam tuber using indigenous method or equipment. Replacing such energy in cooking and yam pounding operation became expedient due to many reasons including tedious, laborious and very difficult. Materials to be used for construction of the electro-mechanical pounding machine were sourced locally and three different varieties of yam were used for its performance evaluation. It was observed from the result that the efficiency of the machine is high [98.75% (white yam), 99.70% (yellow yam), and 99.10% (water yam)]. The percentage lump and pounding capacity for white yam, yellow yam and water yam were 1.25, 3.49, 0.90 and 31.71, 29.68, 27.73g/s respectively.