DEVELOPMENT OF SUNFLOWER SEEDS HULLILNG PROTOTYPE

The main objective of this study is to develop and evaluate a hulling prototype of sunflower seeds. The evaluation was conducted in the matter of spinning disc speed, the material of spinning disc, the number of vanes on spinning disc, and the sunflower seeds moisture content. The results showed that, the hulling efficiency and broken kernels increased with the decreasing of the sunflower seeds moisture content. It was also cleared that, the hulling efficiency and broken kernels increased with the increasing of speed of the spinning disc and the number of vanes on spinning disc from 2 to 6 vanes. So, the best operational variables for the hulling prototype is; 5200 rpm (65.31 m/s) spinning disc speed with 6 vanes on the spinning disc. Meanwhile, the aluminum spinning disc resulted in the best hulling efficiency in comparison with the wood and iron materials. The electrical power consumption increased with the increasing of the spinning disc speeds for the three different spinning disc materials (aluminum, wood, and iron).