Design and Construction of a Cutting Machines for Fresh Betel Nut (Areca Catechu Linn)

Indonesia is one of the largest producers of areca nut as agricultural products after India. However, agricultural technology (machinery and equipment) to carry out postharvest handling is always left behind by other countries. One of the postharvest handlers is to cut the fresh betel nut (FBN) with the aim that the postharvest handling process (drying, packaging, and transportation) can be carried out better. Therefore, this paper aims to design, construction and test simply from a FBN cutting machine. The machine uses a static circular blade. Some physical properties of FBN are measured to support the design of the machine. The main parts of the machine are shaft, transmission unit, engine, carrier part, and circular blade. The power requirements are calculated through an approach before construction. The test results of work capacity performance will be compared between the quality of cutting nuts manually with cutting machine. The results of machine performances indicate that the machine capacity, machine efficiency, and work efficiency are 16.43 1.16 kg hr
^-1
, 31.40 2.22%, and 68.72 16.29% respectively.