NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE VARIOUS SIZES OF SPIKE AND SHAFTS USED ON MAIZE SHELLING MACHINE IN NIGERIA USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Selection of the optimum diameter of Spikes and Shafts used on Maize sheller in Nigeria is a major problem for the local fabricators due to which they either over size those components leading to high cost of the shellers or under size them leading to failure of the shellers during operation. To determine the optimum size of the spikes and shaft to be used on Maize sheller, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) were carried out using SolidWorks Premium 2019, to determine the maximum Vonmises Stress, deflection and minimum factor of Safety of those components using the most common size of spikes and shafts used in developing Maize shellers in Bauchi State Nigeria and to recommend the most suitable sizes to be used. From the Simulation of the various sizes of the spikes, it was found that the best size of ribars to be used as the spikes for maize Shellers is either 12 or 14 mm. 12 mm will be subjected to maximum Vonmises stress of 103.092 Mpa at a factor of safety of 2.716 while 14 mm will be subjected to a Maximum stress of 76.57 Mpa at a factor of Safety of 3.66. The most suitable Size for the Shelling shaft was determined to be 20 mm which will be subjected to a maximum Vonmises Stress of 73.32 Mpa at a factor of Safety of 4.8 with a maximum deflection of 0.09 mm.