Design, Development and Testing of Low Capital and Operational Cost Shrub Cutting Machine

Abstract

The machine to be designed and developed with a view to resolve one of<br />the irksome problems of this institute has been facing every year. This institute is<br />surrounded by vast non- fertile land area of about 200 acres, which becomes widely<br />occupied by numerous breads of bushes and shrubs during post-rainy season. Due to<br />this unwanted proliferation of such verdant institute gets abysmal look and that<br />dumps off massive fund every year to get rid off it. The shrubs cutting machines<br />comprises a main body (chassis) with two wheels and handle to provide movement<br />in the field. One power unit (small S.I. engine) is mounted on this to give power for<br />the cutting blades through small transmission mechanism. The cutting blades are<br />mounted on a small shaft. Which actually perform the cutting operation? We intend<br />to develop a machine which would provide better cutting action of bushes with low<br />capital and operational cost.<br />With reference to literature available there are many types of lawn mowers, bush<br />cutters and lawn tractors are exist in the market, which may not fulfill the capital and<br />operational cost criteria. The main concentration of our design is the cost and<br />operational ease. During design, development and fabrication the machine was<br />undergone several laboratory. Field tests like; determination of torque and force<br />analysis, load and speed test on design specifications (for shaft, gear and bearings),<br />impact test, balance test and finally cutting output test. After testing we succeed to<br />have a satisfactory performance, though it requires further more improvements<br />which can be done in due course of time in stage II of the project.