DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF

AUTOMATED VEGETABE CUTTER AND

SLICER

A PROJECT REPORT
Submitted By:

SUBASH S (912518114045)

SUSHMITHAN S (912518114048)

VIGNESHWARAN R (912518114053)

In partial fulfillment for the award of the degree

Of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
IN

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
SRI RAAJA RAAJAN COLLEGE OF ENGINERING AND
TECNOLOGY,AMARAVATHIPUDUR,KARAIKUDI

ANNA UNIVERSITY:CHENNAI 600025

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 ANNA UNIVERSITY:600025

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this Project report “DESIGN

OF AN AUTOMATED VEGETABLE CUTTER
AND SLICER” is the bonafide work of
SUBASH S(912518114045),SUSHMITHAN
S(912518114048),VIGNESHWARAN
R(912518114053) who carried out the
project work under my supervision.

SIGNATURE: SIGNATURE:

MR R RAMASAMY M.E MR S SUNDHARAVIGNESG M.E

HEAD OF THE DAPARTMENT SUPERVISOR

Department of Mechanical Engineering Department Of Mechanical Engineering

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Sri Raaja Raajan College of Engineering Sri Raaja Raajan college Of Engineering

And Technology,Amaravathipudur, And Technology, Amaravathipudur,

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my profound gratitude thanks to

Mr.R.RAMASAMY, M.E., Head of the Department of

Mechanical Engineering, for providing sample

facilities to complete my project successfully.

I thank my guide Mr.SUNDHARAVIGNESH M.E., for his

excellent guidance and patient supervision

throughout my project work.

I am also bound to thank the other staff members of

the Department of Mechanical Engineering, whose

support and cooperation also contributed much to

complete this project work.

My sincere thanks to one and all who contributed

towards my project work completion.

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
SI:NO TITTLE PAGE NO

1 ABSTRACT 06

2 INTRODUCTION 07

3 OBJECTIVES:
 GENERAL OBJECTIVES,
 ACADAMIC OBJECTIVES 08

4 BACKGROUND 10

5 PRELIMINARY REVIEW

 CUTTING,
 SLICING,
 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY 11

6 MATERIALS AND METHODS 14

7 STEEL AND ALUMINIUM 15

8 DIAGRAM 17

9 WORKING PROCEDURE 19

10 DESIGNING PROCEDURE 21
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11 MULTIPURPOSE VEGETABLE SLICER 23

12 FEEDER ASSEMBLY 24

13 CUTTER BLADE ASSEMBLY 25

14 CUTTER 26

15 BLOCK DIAGRAM 27

16 ADVANTAGES 28

17 ANALYSIS 30

18 CONCLUSION 33

19 REFERENCE 34

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 1. ABSTRACT

Manual cutting and slicing of vegetables has proved to be very time

consuming and is prone to the risk of contamination of the food leading
to high rates of foodborne diseases. Various methods have been
implemented in the process of size reduction of vegetables ranging from
manual, electric and automated. The desire to make a design that
simplifies, that saves time, that is relatively cheaper and efficienct
during the process of size reduction of vegetables was the main scope of
the whole project. The contaminant free products will be produced
through the use of U.V light and this machine will incorporate U.V light
as its integral component. The principle of operation of the machine is
attached to the theory of rotating hollow discs. Experiments were
conducted at the Department Laboratory and a force of 19.5N was
obtained for the hardest vegetable. The machines available in Zimbabwe
have posed to be very expensive while they are only availed abroad. The
machine must always be used with caution since it has rotating
elements. In conclusion, the objectives were met and the most
importantly the cost was in the desired range hence acceptable to the
market. From the cost analysis, the total price required for the vegetable
cutter and slicer is $890.73.

Keywords
Vegetable cutter and slicer, UV-light, Zimbabwe, Low cost
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 2. INTRODUCTION:

Vegetables are defined as an herbaceous plant or a part of a plant that is

eaten whole or in part (Welbaum, 2015). Over the years, world

vegetable production has increased. For example, there was over four

times increase in world vegetable production from 1970 until 2009

(FAO, 2011). The increase has largely been as a result of a prolonged

technological advancement. On a large scale, vegetables are produced to

suit the supermarkets and some food industries for example those which

do canning. The major problem arises on reducing the size of the

vegetable for it to be easily consumed by the customer. Cutting and

slicing have prevailed for over a long period of time and several

methods have been used to carry out the special tasks. Traditional

methods made use of knives and other machines devised for those

purposes. These methods have posed to be tiresome and great time-

consuming tasks especially in our busy lives.

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Throughout the industrial era revolution, automated machines have

gradually become a vital component of human life daily. Compared to

their manual counterparts, automated machines have continuously saved

most of the people’s time to carry out a certain task and this

enhancement has greatly led to a more and more competitive and faster

way of doing things. In the late 90’s, automation was the main focal

point of design (Tony, et al., 2014), the engineering field tremendously

worked night and day to bring about significant improvements to

modern automated products (Talapatra, 2013). Kitchen equipment is

being a necessity to commercial kitchen areas these days. Modern

kitchen equipment is in a great need in the worldwide market because of

their absolute efficiency, durability and they are very reliable

3.OBJECTIVES OF CUTTING MACHNE:

 The main objective of the project is to manufacture an

automatic vegetable cutting machine using slider crank

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 mechanism, with simple design, that saves time and that is

of affordable cost and efficient during the process of size

reduction of vegetables.

 GENERAL OBJECTIVES:

Present work is based on providing an alternative to

the existing automated system mainly, targetting the initial

investment factor, and to power to domestic product using

pneumatics there by eliminating the associated difficulties of

manual vegetable cutting.

 ACADEMIC OBJECTIVES:

While progressing our project, we will gain the

knowledge in the fields of mechanical system,

programmable logic controller and pneumatics system.

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 4. BACKGROUND:

The existing vegetable cutters and slicers have been designed based on

different criterion. The technology of slicing and cutting of vegetables

has dated since long back at around the 1970s (Jiang, 2013) . Traditional

methods of cutting and slicing vegetables have been used since long

back, people cut and or slice their vegetables using knives. This method

is regarded the cheapest one as it does not require sophisticated

mechanisms to carry out. Complications arises when evaluating the

accidents associated with this method, people tend to accidentally cut

themselves whilst trying to make suitable cuts and slices. The structure

of the slicer can be split into either horizontal or vertical depending on

the shaft and the bearing orientation (Zhou, 2003). Typical cuts such as

the brunoise, macedoine etc. require highly skilled personnel to carry

and if not, one is most likely to injure himself. Due to these

complications this has led to reduction in productivity e.g. within a food

industry and more money will be required to train the required labour.

The major disadvantage of the method comes due to great time

consumption.
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 5.PRELIMINARY REVIEW:
Vegetables include, carrots, rape vegetables, tomatoes, cabbage,

potatoes, cauliflower and others, they take part in the contribution of

water amount in the body as well as several vitamins and some minerals

which assist to maintain body weight and a healthy skin. (FAO, 2013).

They can also be referred to as fresh components of plants which, either

if raw, cooked, canned or processed in some other way, give adequate

human nutrition.

 CUTTING:

As referred to the context of the project, cutting refers to the removal of

something from something larger by using a sharp object such as a knife

and blade. The final product is the exact required shape of the vegetable

even with the dimensions attained to almost perfection, for example a

brunoise cut measures exactly 1/8’ x1/8’ x1/8’. This clearly implies that

a cut is derived from a slice, the thickness of the slice will determine

also the thickness of the cut. One of the most relevant factors during the

cutting operation is the type of cutting tool used (Jiang, et al., 2011).

Implying that the sharpness of the blades or the knife can affect the
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storage life of the vegetables. Blunt knives tend to harm the tissue layers

of the vegetable (Allende & Gill, 2012).

 SLICING:

Slicing is the cutting of food into thin, relatively broad slices, reducing

the size of the vegetable into smaller and thin pieces of the original

vegetable, the process is usually carried out by the use of knives or

blades and the shape of the slice is simple as compared to that of a cut.

The main difference between a cut and a slice as referred to the context

of this project is that a cut is the required shape of the vegetable while a

slice is simply a thin dividend of the original vegetable

 EXISTING VEGETABLE CUTTER AND

SLICERS:l
The most common type of automated vegetable cutters and slicers

operate with a motor via a cylindrical shaft (Tony, 2014). Examples of

the available machines is the DitoSama combined vegetable cutter and

slices which perform both cutting and slicing operations. The

vegetables are fed through a hopper either vertically or inclined at an

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angle and the operational cutting and slicing of the vegetables is

obtained by the high-speed rotation of the blade which cuts the

vegetables as they pass through it, a hopper is the regulator for the entry

or the vegetablesand holds them. Most of the vegetable cutters utilise

the same principle of operation as the DitoSama.

 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

• To design a vegetable cutter and slicer that operates automatically.

• A machine that eliminates contaminants on the vegetables

• To design a vegetable cutter and slicer that is easy to assemble and dis-

assemble.

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 6.MATERIALS AND METHOD

Adequate data was gathered for the development of the machine into the

proposed design, enough and relevantformulae were derived from first

principles, experiments were conducted in the University laboratory

todetermin the unknown parameters. The machine drawings, bill of

quantities and 2D representations were developed using

SOLIDWORKS. The automation process for controlling the cutting and

slicing process was developed using

Siemens. A number of three possible solutions was generated to meet up

with the project’s requirements and thesewere made after the detailed

analysis of the preliminary study. The solutions each have different

designs andmechanisms in order to cater for the demerits in the previous

versions. Each solution was designed to meet the

project’s objectives.

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 7.STEEL AND ALUMINIUM

In this design, stainless steel and aluminum were the metals used. The

stainless steels were used in the body frame, the cutter, the cutter seat

and the handle due to its ability to resist corrosion. Aluminum sheet was

used to producethe collector where the sliced item is being made to go

in. Looking at steel aswhole, steel is an alloy of iron and carbon

(Harrison, and Nettleton, 1982). Pigiron is a relatively impure material

containing up to 10% carbon, silicon,manganese, phosphorus and

sulphur. The manufacture of steel from pig ironinvolves the progressive

oxidation of these impurities which are lost as slag orgases. Since steels

are produced from pig iron, there is the tendency of it gettingrusted and

as a result of this; chromium and Nickel were added to it to make it

stainless thereby, giving it the ability to resist corrosion.

Aluminum is an element obtained from the reduction of alumina

(Al203)via the electrolytic process. Some of its properties that made it

suitable for thecollector are:

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 It is durable

 It is light in weight

 Ithas a controus, white and attractive appearance

 It does not corrode easily

 It is usually available with low cost of purchase

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8. DIAGRAM OF VEGETABLE CUTTING

MACHINE:

*Cutting Capacity:150kg/hr

*Machine weight:30 kgf

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*Blades:Only one blade will given along with the machine.

CUTTING BLADES AND SIZE:

 Grater – 2.5 mm,4mm & 8mm

 Dicer- 10mm,15mm & 20mm

 Finger chips – 3*3,4*4 &6*8

 Slicing – 2mm ,3mm &10mm

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 9.DESIGN PROCEDURE:

The design process is a scheduled plan for realizing an estimated

goal.The estimated goal in this case is to design of a manual vegetable

slicingmachine. Design covers a wide range of activities from the

conception of ideasto the preparation of working drawings (McCarthy

and Repp 1987). Thismachine is therefore, designed such that it can

slice vegetables such a tomatoes,fresh pepper, carrot etc. to smaller

pieces with minimal strength. It will haveother special characteristic

which makes it very unique when produced such as:

 Durability: This is the ability of lasting long without breakage

 Portability: The device is freely and easily moved without

stress or anyform of inconveniences.

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 10.WORKING PRINCIPLE OF THE SLICING
MACHINE:
This device is designed in such a way that when vegetable are placed

inside the machine, the rotary motion of the cutters from the handle is

made tocrush these vegetables thereby, reducing their sizes to its

minimum. With the aidof the collector, the sliced vegetables is

collected.

Maintenance of Machine

There are three types of maintenance in engineering at large, these are:

 Planned maintenance

 Preventive maintenance

 Corrective maintenance

To be on the safe side, it is always advisable to utilize the preventive

type of maintenance for this very device.

The following maintenance guidelines should be adhered to in the use

ofthe machine:
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It should be washed and cleaned thoroughly after usage.

Little force should be applied when slicing in order to avoid a little

clearancebetween the handle diameter and the cutter pipe diameter.

11.MULTIPURPOSE OF VEGETABLE

SLICER:

Fabrication of multipurpose vegetable slicer cum shredder The

multipurpose vegetable slicer cum shredder machine constitutes mainly

of the feeder assembly, cutter assembly and the power transmission

assembly. The various parts of multipurpose vegetable slicer cum

shredder are listed below as: 1. Feeder assembly a. Feeder box b. Pusher

2. Cutter assembly a. Slicing blade b. Shredding blade 3. Power

transmission assembly a. Electric motor 4. Frame The basic data

regarding the engineering properties of vegetables useful in design are

discussed in this section. The size and dimensions of the various

components of the machine are selected by keeping various facts in

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consideration before final fabrication. The dimensions of the feeder

box were determined on the basis of maximum size of the vegetables

that are required to be handled by the slicer/shredder. The physical

dimensions of potatoes, cucumbers, bottle gourds and carrots were

measured by the standard procedure with the help of digital vernier

calipers of 0.01 cm least count. Ten pieces of all four vegetables were

randomly selected and their dimensions were measured. The selected

physical and mechanical properties of potatoes, cucumbers, bottle

gourds and carrots are presented in Table 4.1 to Table 4.4 along with the

standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variance (CV). It can be seen

from that the average diameter of potatoes, cucumbers, carrots and

bottle gourds are 6.76, 2.9, 1.94 and 6.28 cm respectively. Similarly, the

average length of the potatoes, cucumbers, carrots and bottle gourds

were measured as 11.00, 17.00, 36.00 and 31.00 cm respectively. The

mass of ten selected vegetable pieces were measured with the help of

digital balance of least count 0.1 g and it was found that the average

mass of potatoes was 231.00 g, whereas the average mass of one pieces

of cucumbers, carrots and bottle gourds was found as 158.0, 232.0 and
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569.0 g respectively. The vegetables were peeled manually and the mass

of peel and pulp was determined and it was found that the potatoes

has the maximum pulp to peel ratio of 10.48:1 and cucumber has

minimum pulp to peel ratio of 8.30:1, whereas the pulp to peel ratio of

carrots and bottle gourds was found as 8.84:1 and 8.80:1respectively.

12.FEEDER ASSEMBLY:

As the existing slicer/shredder units can handle one piece of vegetable at

a time that too of specific shape therefore it was thought to have two

feeder boxes for feeding the vegetable of different shape and size. In

order to feed the material in the slicing/shredding unit safely, two feeder

boxes were attached. The length of each feeder box was taken as 145

mm, so that it won’t obstruct the operator in the proper feeding the

vegetables and it also provide the safe passage to the cutting unit

without having the contact of hands of operator to the cutting tool. Two

different feeding boxes were constructed so that different shape of

vegetables can be accommodated. One feeding unit having 8.7 cm

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diameter can accommodate approximately 2-3 potatoes at one time

similarly another unit of 7 x 13.5 cm cross section which can be used

for long vegetables like bottle gourd and carrot. Two feeding boxes

were fabricated for the developed machine and for feeding the

vegetables easily and safely in the developed slicer/shredder; pushing

rod made of wooden was also developed with the unit. The feeder

assembly guides the vegetables through lever so that the clogging in the

feeder box is avoided and wastage during the operation may be reduced.

The clear distance between push plate and open end of feeder was about

125 mm, so a wooden push rod of 125 mm was attached for easy

handling of the vegetables. The pushing lever is also attached for

smooth handling the equipment.

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 13.CUTTER PLATE ASSEMBLY:

The cutting unit is one oy size reduction machine. The diameter the

cutting blade and the gap between the slicing/shredding blades are main

working component. The gap between the slicing blades and shredding

units were decided by the thickness of slices and shreds required.

Keeping these points in view the diameter of cutting plate was selected

as 320 mm and then gap between the slicing units was maintained as 3

mm. Cutter assemblies comprises of a slicing blade and shredding

blade. The blades were made of stainless steel as working part. The two

blades are mounted on the cutter plate with the help of the blade

support. Power is transmitted by the electric motor through the belt and

pulley drive. Vegetables are pushed against the vertical plane of the

cutter plate. The machine was targeted to produce the slices and shreds.

The blades were fabricated from the material generally used for making

a cutting device. These blades were mounted on to the cutter plate by

means of plate guide. The specifications of blade material are follows:

1. Material: Stainless steel (SS 304)

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2. Characteristics: General purpose, maximum corrosion resistance

after heat treatment and hardnable by heat treatment etc

.3. Yield stress (min.): 21.0 kg/cm2

4. Ultimate stress (min): 45.5 kg/cm

14.CUTTER:

The housing was made of 3 mm thick MS plate. The cutter housing has

diameter of 320 mm with two mm clearance. A slant shreds chute is

constructed at bottom of cutter housing for easy flow of slicer.

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 15.BLOCK DIAGRAM:

HOBBER VEGETABLE CUTTING SLICED

FLOW TOOL VEGETABLE
CONTROL

DC MOTOR WIPER
MOTOR

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16.ADVANTAGES OF VEGETABLE CITTING

MACNINE:

1. The cutting starts even from the starting vertical position of

knives,without sliding of vegetable. This feature enables Potato and

Onion slicing.

2. The device has a mechanical advantage of 5. The load centre is 50 to

60 mm from the Fulcrum and the knife handle is 300 mm from the

Fulcrum. This feature is not possible in Grid type or Scissors type

cutters.

3. The fulcrum is made of steel. The knives themselves act as levers

which is a unique feature. As the knife cum levers are also of

stainless steel there is no fear of failure. The plastic levers of Grid

type cutters break when Potatoes are cut !

4. There is big choice in choosing the number of knives for cutting.

One can choose the top assembly or bottom assembly or both

assemblies for cutting . The width of cut pieces varies based on the

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 assemblies chosen. In addition there is a single knife option for

special jobs like cutting pieces/slices thinner than 7 mm and potato

wafer cutting.

5. Versatility : The device can slice whole vegetables like potatoes, turn

all the slices to fingers in one cut, cut bunches of Beans or Okra into

neat pieces in one cut. All the above functions are possible without

changing any knives. Each cut takes only 3 Seconds!

6. The knife assemblies are in two levels and in each level the knives

occupy alternate slots between guides. These features greatly reduce

cutting loads and minimize knife bending on load while cutting

vegetables like whole potatoes.

7. The knife edges last long as they do not hit the board at the end of

cut .They are free!

8. The Multi knife cutter knife edges can be sharpened in location using

a Diamond file. The Cleaning of Knives after use is also simple using

running water.

9. It is built strong with quality components and hence has long life.

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10. The ability to cut simultaneously with 7/11 knives saves lot of

time.

17.ANALYSIS

 Production

 Quality

 Delivery

 Safety

 Morale

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 PRODUCTION:

*This auto machine produces the new way technology

producing the cutting process.

*In speed production is done.

*Which produces the cutting modulation in auto machine

process.

*Which able to produce the product in an genuine manner

and perfect process of finishing of vegetables and no wastages

 QUALITY:

*Where we are using the high quality product stainless steel

Blade which can’t rusted for long period of time.

*The product is completely produced with an pneumatics

which have an accurate type of producing the material.

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 DELIVERY
*High speed process cutting with an accuracy product
equipments are used.
*It can able to cut the vegetable 100 in an hour.
*Very fast delivery with an auto machine technology.

 SAFETY
*To avoid the accidental purpose we implemented a new
safety methods.
*Sensors plays a major role in the safety department.
*We use proximity sensors to sense the motion objects.

 MORAL
We have learnt the moral by doing this project we have
gained the knowledge in the different fields.

Which as flows the below

*Pneumatics and hydraulics system
*Mechanical
*Electronics

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 12.CONCLUSION:
Designing of the automated vegetable cutter and slicer was

successfully implemented within the required budgetof USD1000, the

machine can do several cuts and slice sizes depending on the consumer

requirement (macedoinejulienne, etc). Moreover, the Implemented U.V

platform ensures safe products for immediate consumptionwithout any

harm both to the user and the food. Use was made of locally available

materials to construct thedesign to success thus a great margin was

achieved in terms of costs. However, the actual reveals of the

machineare only visible when it is brought to operation after

manufacture and allowed to perform its tasks as according to

the design.

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 13.REFERENCE:

Bird J.O. (1995). Science for engineering, N.Y. Kent Newness Harrison

H.R. & Nettleton (1982). Principles of engineering mechanics

U.K.ELBS.McCarthy, W.J. & Repp, V.E. (1987). Metalwork

Technology and Practice (8thEdition) Reoria, USA, Glecoe Publishers

Co.Morling, K. (1974).Geometric and engineering drawing for CSE and

GCE DREPress Inc.Riley, W.F. Sturges L.D. & Morris D.H. (2001).

Mechanics of materials Fifthedition. New York Jonh Wiley and Sons

(Asia) Pte. Ltd.

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THANK YOU

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