Res. Agr. Eng., 2026, 72(1):41-58 | DOI: 10.17221/121/2025-RAE

Research on the optimal design and process parameters of a castor seed cleaning machineOriginal Paper

Elchyn Aliiev ORCID...1, Valentyn Holovchenko ORCID...1, Olha Aliieva ORCID...2
1 Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University, Dnipro, Ukraine
2 Department of Technical and Technological Support of Seed Production, Institute of Oilseed Crops of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

In the context of the modern EU bioeconomy, the use of industrial crops, particularly castor beans (Ricinus communis L.), is relevant for the production of industrial and energy products without competing with food crops. Castor oil is used for the production of biodiesel, lubricants, paints and coatings, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. In Ukraine, castor beans can be cultivated on low-yield soils, with seed yields ranging from 1.5 t/ha to 2.1 t/ha depending on the variety. However, the morphological features of the fruits and uneven ripening complicate the mechanisation of harvesting and seed cleaning processes. Existing equipment designed for other crops cannot be applied due to the risk of damaging the castor seeds. A design of a castor seed cleaning machine has been proposed, combining mechanical fruit shelling with the aerodynamic separation of the mixture. The machine is equipped with an eccentric crushing cone, rubber linings, a pneumatic separation channel, a cyclone, and an automated control unit. As a result of numerical modelling and experimental studies of the process of separating and cleaning castor seeds, dependencies were obtained for the productivity of the developed machine Q, power consumption P, specific energy consumption E, fraction of unshelled fruits (segments) ξf, content of the clean seed in the seed collector ψs-s depending on the distance between the reverse and crushing cones δ, rotation frequency of the crushing cone n, diameter of the feed opening Din, inclination angle of the crushing cone axis γ, and airflow velocity V. A multi-criteria optimisation method was applied to find the optimal operating modes: δ = 10.8 mm; n = 282 rpm; V = 3.6 m/s; Din = 98 mm; γ = 3.6°; β = 20.3°. The following results were achieved: E = 0.0394 MJ/kg; Q = 163.4 kg/h; P = 1 861 W; ξf = 0.099; ψs-s = 0.958. The obtained results confirm the efficiency of the proposed design for industrial implementation.

Keywords: experiment; mechanical shelling; numerical simulation; productivity; quality; regression models; separation; specific energy

Received: July 26, 2025; Accepted: December 16, 2025; Prepublished online: March 16, 2026; Published: March 19, 2026  Show citation

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Aliiev E, Holovchenko V, Aliieva O. Research on the optimal design and process parameters of a castor seed cleaning machine. Research in Agricultural Engineering. 2026;72(1):41-58. doi: 10.17221/121/2025-RAE.
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