Design of selective tea plucking machine

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the research project is "Selective Tea Plucking Machine". /According to my literature survey I have found that Tea plucking machines are designed in many countries but they are designed only for plucking and selecting method. These machines are very large and expensive. It is used only for flat land. However this at present is a completely manual process and is responsible for a substantial portion of the cost of tea manufacture./ In manual plucking, plucking tea leaves are retained between fingers till reasonable amount of leaves are collected. Then 'holding between fingers' often cause some degree of crushing leading to commencement of premature fermentation. Therefore quality will be reduced. Thus it has become essential to mechanize this process to improve productivity, yet retaining the high quality and accuracy of selective plucking. Due to above technical and financial restrictions facing with research as well as depth of expected research study to be performed by using own methods to design low cost and portable machine. In this context is carried out considering selective plucking method. Further, considering the ergonomics aspects are essential for this design, it is useful to operate this machine without fatigue. It is based on less weight of the machine, holding and bag (container) arrangement. It is understood that the given detailed of the cutting mechanism and the tea leaves are transported to the bag (container) with suitable convey system. This report contains literature survey, field test, design details, and economic feasibilities.