Abstract

Through appropriate technology, an attempt was made to design and simulate a model of a manual cowpea thresher. Based on the outcome of threshing cowpea with conventional thresher and previous studies of properties of indigenous brown (Variety A) and RMP- 12 (Sampea -10) white (Variety B cowpeas, design of   manual cowpea thresher was carried out with an autodesk inventor professional 10 software at Cranfield University. Results show that there is a requirement for primary and secondary threshing before the actual threshing with the drum to allow for the rubbing impact on the crop.  Power requirement, drum speed and design through output capacity for the manual thresher (without seeds separation and cleaning) are 0.18 kW, 100 rpm, 147.7 kg / h, respectively. Issues on designs and how the threshing of cowpea will be improved were discussed in this paper. 

Key words: Thresher, design, cowpea, inventor, technology.