Development of a Hammer Mill with an Integrated Pulverizer and a Cyclone Storage System

Hammer mills are used to pulverize and/or grind grains and similar bulk solid materials into smaller particles while storing the grinded and crushed components in an attached storage cyclone. Locally sourced materials were used for the hammer mill integrated with the pulverizer, and storage cyclone that was developed. Traditional hammer mills are made up of a free-swinging hammer, a shaft, a screen, a hopper, a power source, and an outlet. Hammer mills, which are typically found in metropolitan areas in Nigeria, are imported and costly for farmers in rural areas to get. Traditional hammer mills have characteristic drawbacks such as sieve screen wear and blocks, moisture accumulation in the pulverizing space, bulkiness, and the creation of undesirable coarse particles. The current development centered on the analytical design of an enhanced unified hammer mill that uses a single action to pulverize, transport, and blow out pulverized large material particles under gravity via a cyclone. It has a feeding hopper and tray, low and high-pressure throats, a shaft, spacing discs, hammers, an axial fan, a gate, a cyclone, an electric motor, bearings, and a pulley. Test methodologies used to evaluate the percentage mass loss of materials following milling operations yielded 90% efficiency and three times the speed of a traditional machine. Maize pulverization created small particles with diameters ranging from 350m to 505m, according to the equipment. The 2hp capacity hammer mill is compact and inexpensive to build, use, and maintain. Its commercial manufacture and use would provide relief to rural farmers while also promoting Nigerian indigenous technology.