Development of a Multi-grade Flour Sieving Machine: It’s Performance and Financial Feasibility

This study was conducted at the Engineering Shop of Southern Cagayan Research Center (SCRC) located at Minanga Norte, Iguig, Cagayan from March to April 2024. The design and fabrication of the flour sieving machine prototype were undertaken using local technology. The study generally aimed to develop and evaluate the performance of the multi-grade flour sieving machine using glutinous rice flour in terms of electrical energy consumption, sieving capacity, sieving efficiency, and weight of the sieved flour. A simple cost analysis was also done to determine the economic viability of the machine. The result of the study was analyzed using Analysis of Variance for a Completely Randomized Design for two factorial experiments with three replications. The treatments used were the different oscillating speeds (Factor A) and the inclination angle of the sieve (Factor B). Least Significant Differences (LSD) were used to determine differences between treatment means. The overall mean of the machine in terms of sieving capacity was 71.22 kg/h, sieving efficiency of 95.80 %, and electrical energy consumption of 0.046 kW-hr/kg. From a mean weight of 5.75kg, the composition of flour contains 2.51% coarse, 66.27% medium, 22.18% fine and 9.05% extra fine. All parameters used in the study were significantly influenced by Factor A. However, the result of LSD at 1% level of significance shows no difference to each other when considering Factor B alone. Likewise, the interaction of Factor A x B for both electrical energy consumption and sieving capacity was not significantly different. The equipment’s cost was Php 37,000.00, the break-even point was 6,437.42 kg /yr and the break-even usage was 11.30 days/yr. Keywords: Technology development, Locally fabricated sieving machine, Performance Testing, Flour grading, Philippines