PREAMBLE TO THE DESCRIPTION
INTRODUCTION
Peeling is an important preliminary stage of fruits and vegetable processing. The quality and the final price of the processed products are highly dependent on this stage. Manual peeling is possible for any kind of product, but large losses and considerable consumption of time and labour have encouraged the peeling industry to use other methods. Mechanical, thermal and chemical peelings are conventional methods each of which has its own benefits and limitations. Those methods apply mechanical tools, heat or cold and dye respectively to peel off the fruit and vegetable skin. As none of the current methods can satisfy all requirements of producers and consumers, other kinds of peeling methods have been developed. Changing the peeling technique has not produced large impact and the problems are still unsolved.
The main reason for choosing this project was the creativity involved and the demand for something that would serve the purpose of peeling the raw banana to make chips out of it. As "necessity is the mother of invention", before taking up this project, it was important to note its necessity. So, after surveying market, it ended up at „Kripa Chips Company" which is one of the leading food product manufacturers in Dakshina Kannada region, especially banana chips. Their main point of concern is the time consumption, lack of labours and damage while peeling raw bananas manually. Keeping this necessity in mind, the present work is taken up with an objective to provide engineering solutions to the problems mentioned above.
II. PRIOR ART
There are numerous designs of peelers used today. Most handheld peelers are either straight
or Y-type, while the particular designs vary depending on region and personal preference. A
straight peeler has the blade parallel to the handle, resembling a knife. The blade may be
fixed or pivoting. The Lancashire and French Economic designs contain a fixed blade which
does not pivot. The Lancashire often has a round wooden handle wrapped in string, and is
often single edged, though there are dual edged variants. The Economic has a unique blade
design with two slits. Swivel peelers have the blade mounted on a pivot. Thus the angle of
the blade is self-adjusted as pressure is applied with increased ease of use.
Banana peeling machine by G. J. BRAGG, Patent applied number US 1088400.. Application filed APR.16 1910. Renewed, JULY 1, 1913, Patented Feb. 24, 1914. This machine was bit complicated in design and production rate was not satisfactory due to which it is out-dated. Banana peeling machine Inventor: Leslie Black, 21 Awatea, St. Ives, 2075 N.S.W., Australia. Appl. No.: 420,906. Application filed Sep.21 1982. By its bulk size and cost effective machine design not adopted for industries.
Currently there are no such machines available in the market that serves the purpose of
peeling raw bananas. As from many years, small scale industries are producing bananachips,
they are very much familiar with the problems faced by them in manufacturing banana chips.
This was the reason to choose small scale industries for giving engineered solutions to their
problem. This work develops a new mechanical method for peeling tough skinned bananas
which are further used for making chips.  
4. DESCRIPTION
III. DESIGN AND FABRICATION
To facilitate the banana with a proper guide way, a pipe was installed which was connected to the four bar link mechanism across the path through which the banana is made to pass during the peeling process. Fig. 1 shows photograph of the fabricated unripe banana peeling machine.
The machine was basically consists of a separate guide way and sets of blades arranged in two separate horizontal planes. The guide way was basically a pipe of suitable diameter which is enough to pass the banana of any size. The length of this guide way depends on the maximum length"of the banana and keeping provisions for future work. This guide way was fixed rigidly to the base through one set of four bar link mechanism. Each set of four bar link mechanism has three blades covering maximum surface area of the banana. Another set of C frame link mechanism is positioned at certain height from the base depending on the maximum and minimum size of the banana.
The first set of the C frame link mechanism was also attached to the guide way. On passing the banana through the guide way, the first set of blades does most part of the peeling and is continued to the second set to peel off the left overs. This banana is pushed into the guide way or pipe with the help of a ram which is slightly smaller in size as compare to the size of the guide way or pipe in terms of diameter
IV. WORK ANALYSIS
The design was made based on the factors such as curvature of the banana and the position of the blade and guide way assembly, which were affecting the efficient peeling of banana. On constructing the proposed design in this phase and testing, the analysis made was in favour of the design because the efficiency of peeling when done manually was all good to move with. The amount of peeling was satisfactory.
From the characterization results, it was found that for these raw green bananas, the rind thickness usually varies from 1-2 mm and with maximum cross sectional diameter of 4 cm and minimum cross sectional diameter of 3 cm of the bananas used for making chips.

During the operation, it was observed that the efficiency of peeling was about 70% obtained from the final phase of the construction. Because the design is manually operated, the gender and stamina of the operator will determine the speed of the output. The product integrity is preserved by choice of materials and the absence of lubrication and cooling during the peeling process. The waste products are automatically separated from the desired products.
On trying different lengths of banana, further results were obtained that when the length and curvature of raw banana to be peeled is more than the limit it was supposed to be cut into two pieces before being passed through the guide ways for peeling.
Most components are modular and can be assembled without difficulties. Long service is guaranteed for components; therefore minimizing the frequency of repairs. The peeler can also be used as a portable detached component at the farm.
5. CLAIMS I/we claim
1. At the beginning we have to be ready with the row bananas with its two end portions are cute properly which is waste parts of banana.
2. As claimed in claim 1 wherein when the handle(l) of liver mechanism is lift up the ram(2) will move up and makes gap to fit banana inside the guide way(4) and the door of guide way(4) will open by the help of wire rope links.
3. As claimed in claim 2 wherein after inserting the row banana into the guide way slot, we need to pull the handle (1) down. The door will close automatically due to spring force and the ram (2) will come down by applied pulling force on the handle (1).
4. The ram (2) claimed in claim 3 wherein will apply force on one end of the banana which is positioned inside the guide way(4) vertically. Due to this vertical force of the ram (2) on the banana, the banana will push down.
5. As the banana claimed in claim 4 wherein comes down it will face the first set of blades (5). Each set of C frame (7) has three blades covering maximum surface area of the banana as shown in schematic diagram Fig.2 of the mechanism.
6. As claimed in claim 5 wherein on passing the banana through the guide way, the first set of blades(5) where itself doing the most part of the peeling and is continued over the second set(6) to peel off the left overs.
7. As claimed in claim 6 wherein to get the complete peeled output row banana we have to give continues feed of banana through door of the guide way (4). As we are dealing with an edible item, hence we are using coconut oil which served the purpose of lubrication to the guide way(4), ram(2), and to blades(5,6).
8. The machine claimed in claim 7 wherein the construction material for the entire mechanism is stainless steel, and the blades are made by high grade stainless steel. After working and analyzing the results obtained from the final design which serves the purpose of peeling the banana to a certain satisfactory extent i.e. almost by 70%. By fabricating this machine as factory product with high quality manufacturing, one can increase the efficiency of this mechanism. In future work automation has to be made to speed up the process of peeling