The processing of cocoyam tubers for industrial or human use involves different operations
of which peeling is the major problem. This study was aimed at designing, fabricating and
carrying out performance evaluation of a cocoyam peeling machine, taking into consideration
some physical and mechanical properties of the cocoyam tubers. The machine was evaluated
based on the following parameters which includes; throughput capacity and peeling efficiency
at the speeds of 400 rpm, 700 rpm and 933 rpm. Results revealed that, for all the speeds tested
in the experiment, the corresponding peeling efficiencies of the machine were 50%, 64% and
68% respectively while that of the throughput capacities were 63.20 kg/hr, 84.90 kg/hr and
112.92 kg/hr respectively. It was observed that 933 rpm speed was the most suitable speed for
the operation of this machine, as it had higher peeling efficiency of 68% with a throughput
capacity of 112.92 kg/hr. These results showed appreciable improvement over manual method
which is 20 – 35 kg/hr.