Innovation Engineering – Pedal Powered Cassava Peeling Machine | 2012

Tobias Larsson — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:35:15 +0000

A pedal powered cassava peeling machine has been designed to meet the needs of people living in the rural of Amazon region near Manaus, Brazil.

This Master’s Degree Project, carried out by Industrial Design student An Ni Le, was supported by the Innovation Engineering group at the Department of Design Sciences, Lund University, in collaboration with Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden and Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Brazil. A one-month fieldtrip was carried out at the rural communities near Manaus, Amazonas, focused on how to support people living in the Amazon region.

Cassava is the sixth most important crop plant, and its flour is a primary calorie source in tropical regions around the world. In the Amazon region, Cassava roots are processed into a type of flour called Farinha, which is extremely common and is used as a basic staple food. The product also provides an important income to huge numbers of households in the rural areas. Transforming cassava into flour is a long process which takes a couple of days and basically includes six steps: Peeling, Washing, Grinding, Drying, Sifting and Frying.

Men usually engage in machine operations for grinding, pressing and sifting, while women and children are usually responsible for any manual operations such as peeling, washing and frying. It has been reported that peeling the roots by hand is a major problem and takes 65% of the total time of the whole process. This hard and tedious job has low productivity and high product losses, and it is very time consuming and requires physical labour in poor working conditions. However, machines for peeling cassava are rare in this region due to the high cost of available machines in the market and the scarcity of electricity.

An Ni Le’s goal in this project was to design and develop a solution for how a low cost product could satisfy the identified needs, thinking about the importance of rural development and poverty alleviation and how small scale productions can contribute to households and livelihood security.

The result is a cassava peeling machine that improves working conditions, increases the productivity, reduces product losses, and reduces time consumption and physical labour. Due to the limit of electricity and high cost of gas, a pedal-powered concept was chosen. The rotating drum efficiently maintains the purpose of rubbing the cassava skin off, using high-tech abrasive rollers with wire brushes.

The testing has showed that the machine has a capacity of peeling 60-100kg/h (compared to 20-35kg/h peeling by hand), with an average flesh loss of 5% (compare to 25% peeling by hand), average peeling efficiency of 95%.Building a machine? If you look at p.178 and onwards in the below document, you will be able to see how to build one. As this is frugal innovation, you can hopefully source the materials locally: http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/3357792/file/3567812.pdf There are some people around the world that have built their own machines based on this blueprint, including this one from Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNSA0FvHlQc

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TAGS: Amazonandreas larsson Brazil BTH cassava innovation engineering Lund

Innovation Engineering – Water Harvesting | 2012

Tobias Larsson — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 08:55:35 +0000

A Master project within Industrial design at LTH by Johanna Bengtsson.

After a month long research trip to the Amazon river I decided to work with water harvesting for the most economically poor people in the region.

From my keywords, local production, low running cost and renewable power sources, I refined the water driven water pump.

I had the opportunity to work in the Amazon (Brazil) with the flood plain community Nossa Senhora das Graças.

During a month long stay I observed the daily life of the people. A life where the inhabitants have shaped their daily routines after the rising and dropping water level of the Solimões river (a part of the Amazon river). I identified a need of harvesting water during the low water season, when the river in some areas draws back up to one kilometer.

Today people walk far over heavy terrain under a frying sun or uses gasoline powered boat motors to pump up the river water.

During my master project within Industrial design I decided to focus on how to transport the river water up to households in a low cost, silent and maintenance free way by using the velocity of the river.

The main goal was to transform the ancient coil pump to fit the unique situation in the Solimões river and to make it producible for the local people.

The benefit of using a spiral pump is that it from few rotations can build up a high pressure to pump the water. By connecting it to a water wheel it can be powered by the velocity from the river.

The pump handles water that contains sediments very well and has few critical mechanical parts that can fail. It has an easy and sturdy construction, similar to the construction of a bike. This makes it easy to produce on sight of the people with local materials and can be maintained and repaired by the inhabitants.

The design part of the project was to modify the coil pump which is mostly used in small, private and stable rivers to fit the big Solemões river with it’s changing water level, vast animal life, thick vegetation with floating obstacles and heavy boat traffic. Connections along the tube from the pump to the house makes it possible to disconnect and move the pump closer to the house then the water level is rising. This will protect it from damage from boat traffic. A lamp will signal to boats during night to prevent collisions. A V-shaped protection in front of the pump will protect the construction from hits from floating obstacles and vegetation.

The construction of the pump is developed so that it can be produced, maintained and repaired with simple tools and local material in the villages.

The concept and first prototyping phase of the project took part back home in Lund (Sweden). This prototype was exhibited at Lund University in June.

The second prototype was produced on site in Manaus with local materials, a grinding machine, a handsaw and a stick-welding machine. The challenge was to find a space to work at, with the material bought it took three to four days to make the pump. The pump was transported out to the village Nossa Senhora das Graças and installed.

The pump is still in the village.

The project was presented at a workshop at Lund University with selected actors (e.g. schools, businesses, NGOs, aid organizations) that are involved in the design and development of products and services at the Base of the Pyramid.

In the near future I will join Ankarstiftelsen on a trip to Colombia and install a pump together with their water cleaning system in one of the villages where they are running their projects.

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TAGS: amazon riverAndreas larssson innovation engineering johanna bengtsson LTH Lund water harvesting

Lund – Design for Wellbeing

Innovation Engineering – Pedal Powered Cassava Peeling Machine | 2012

Innovation Engineering – Water Harvesting | 2012