Performance Evaluation of Engine-operated Pulse Splitting Machine

Pulses are an important part of vegetarians' diets because the other foods they eat don't include much protein, and they are the main sources of various minerals, such as calcium, iron, phosphorus, and protein. The majority of the time, pulses are eaten as dehulled splits. The pulse processing is still restricted to time-consuming, health-harming, gender-biased traditional methods that assign all food preparation and processing duties to women. Despite Ethiopia's status as one of the world's leading producers of pulses, low post-harvest technological availability resulted in lower productivity and output. The machine was tested and evaluated in terms of splitting capacity, splitting efficiencies, mechanical damage percentage, and cleaning efficiency for pulse crops like Faba bean, Pea, and Lentil. The experimental design was carried out as a split-plot design having drum speeds with three levels in main plots and feeding rates with two levels in sub-plots, and the analysis was made using the R software. The experimental results clearly demonstrated that disc speed and feed rate are the most critical parameters influencing splitting capacity, splitting efficiency, cleaning efficiency, and grain breakage across Faba bean, pea, and lentil crops. Splitting capacity increased consistently with both drum speed and feed rate, with maximum throughput achieved at the highest speed (650rpm) and feed rate (8 kg/min). Splitting efficiency improved with increasing drum speed but declined slightly at higher feed rates, indicating that while throughput rises, efficiency may be compromised under heavy loads. Cleaning efficiency was highest at high drum speeds and moderate feed rates, confirming that excessive feed rates reduce the effectiveness of impurity separation. Breakage percentage increased with drum speed but decreased with higher feed rates, showing that high speeds intensify mechanical stress while higher feed rates provide a cushioning effect that reduces kernel damage.