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Performance Analysis of Locally Design Plastic Crushing Machine for

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Performance Analysis of Locally Design Plastic Crushing
Machine for Domestic and Industrial Use in Nigeria
E.K. Orhorhoro, A.E. Ikpe and R.I. Tamuno
 preserved in plastics containers such as can water, can
Abstract—This paper is focused on the performance analysis
of locally design plastic crushing machine for domestic and
industrial use in Nigeria. A plastic crushing machine designed
and fabricated from locally sourced materials were used to
crushed plastic materials mainly to reduced plastic wastes
dumped across Nigeria cities. Performance analysis was
carried out on the plastic crushing machine and the efficiency
was calculated as 85.16% while the average machine through
put capacity was determined as 0.112kg/sec. considering the
results obtained, the plastic crushing machine was efficient
enough to be use domestically and industrially.
Index Terms—Plastic crushing machine, plastic wastes,
locally source materials, efficiency, Nigeria
I. INTRODUCTION
Solid waste management is a major environmental
problem facing Nigeria and other developing countries
across Africa. Nigeria streets and homes are dumping
grounds for municipal solid wastes (Fig. 1) and this is a
major concern to government and the society. The level of
waste generation in Nigeria is worrisome with an increasing
population pressure and socio-economic factor [1]. Majority
of Nigeria’s urban cities are struggling to clear heaps of
solid waste from it environment of which reasonable
percentage of such waste is plastics. Major tourism centre
across Nigeria are now taken over by the messy nature of
unattended heaps of solid wastes emanating from the
society. City officials appears unable to combat unlawful
dumping of household and industrial waste, which is a clear
violation of clean air and health edicts in our environmental
sanitation laws and regulations [2]. However, the problem of
plastic waste is not only limited to Nigeria. It is a global
phenomenon. The world’s annual consumption of plastic
materials have increased from around 5 million tonnes in the
1950’s to more than 100 million tonnes; thus, twenty (20)
times more plastic is produced today than 50 years ago [3].
Plastic disposal problem is as a result of a change in life
style of average Nigeria due to rapid urbanization, increase
health awareness etc. This rapid urbanization has made
Nigerians to eat processed food which are wrapped and
Manuscript published August 31, 2016.
E.K. Orhorhoro is with Cemek Machinery Company, Technology
Incubation Centre, Federal Ministry of Science & Technology, Benin City,
Edo State, Nigeria (e-mail: kelecom@yahoo.com)
A.E. Ikpe is with Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of
Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria (e-mail: ikpeaniekan@gmail.com)
R.I. Tamuno is with Power Equipment and Electrical Machinery
Development Institute, National Agency for Science and Engineering
Infrastructure (NASENI), Federal Ministry of Science and Technology,
Okene, Kogi State, Nigeria (e-mail: favour_rogers2006@yahoo.com)
EJERS, European Journal of Engineering Research and Science
Vol. 1, No. 2, August 2016
drinks, can foods etc. because people want to avoid diseases
like typhoid, cholera, dysentery etc. and this has encourage
plastic industries in Nigeria leading to increase in plastic
production. Solid waste problem started in Nigeria with the
rapid increase in urban growth resulting partly from the
increase in population status [4]. There is no town in Nigeria
that can boast of finding a lasting solution to the problem of
filth and huge piles of solid waste; rather the problem
continues to assume monstrous dimensions [5]. To urban
and city dwellers, public hygiene starts and ends in their
immediate surrounding and indeed the city would take care
of itself. The situation has so deteriorated that today the
problem of solid waste has become one of the nation’s most
serious environmental problem [6]. Plastic wastes contribute
approximate 9% (Fig. 2) to the total solid municipal solid
wastes generated across Nigeria cities [7].
Fig. 1. Plastic wastes littered on Nigeria Street
Waste is defined as any product or substance that has no
further use or value for the person or organization that owns
it, and which is, or will be, discarded. Also, waste is any
solid, liquid or gaseous substance or material which could
be scrap, refuse or reject that is disposed or required to be
disposed as unwanted [8]. Waste is usually in three forms
via; liquid, solid and gaseous. Solid wastes are the useless
and unwanted products in the solid state derived from the
activities of and discarded by society [9]. Also, liquid waste
includes any waste that is liquid at 20oC regardless of
whether or not it is packaged or otherwise contained, and
irrespective of whether or not the packaging or container is
to be disposed together with the liquid that it contains [10].
For gaseous waste, is a waste product in gaseous form
resulting from various human activities, such as
manufacturing, processing, material consumption or
biological processes. They are gases which emerge from
incomplete combustion or other chemical reactions [11].
Waste management is defined as the collection,
26

transportation, recovery, recycling and disposal of waste,
including the supervision of such operations and the after-
care of disposal sites, and including actions taken as a dealer
or broker [12].
Metal wastes; Glass; Other
Papers;
0,017 0,012 wastes;
0,016 0,009
Plastics;
0,037
Food wastes;
0,334
Fig. 2. Percentage composition of household solid wastes generation per
person per day 7
Effective waste management involves the management
of:
I. Waste generation
II. On – site storage holding
III. Collection
IV. Transfer and transport
V. Recycling and disposal of the waste materials
where applicable
Recycling is an aspect of environmental engineering that
deals with the development of technically reasonable
solutions to environmental problems by designing, building
and maintaining systems (machines) to recycle wastes
produced by municipalities and private industries such as
plastics, paper wastes, organic municipal solid wastes etc.
Thus, a plastic recycling machine/ equipment is that which
performs the function of grinding, crushing or melting
plastic materials into granules for the production of new
products.
A crushing machine is designed to reduce large solid
material objects into a smaller volume, or smaller pieces.
Crushing machines are usually used to reduce the size and
shape of materials so they can be efficiently used for the
purpose intended to. Crushing can be defined as the process
of transferring a force amplified by mechanical advantage
through a material made of molecules that bond together
more strongly, and resist deformation more, than those in
the material being crushed do [13],[14]. The crushing
materials must possess a better strength and toughness than
the materials to be crushed. Crushing machines and devices
work by mainly holding the material between two parallel or
tangent solid surfaces, and in the process sufficient force is
apply to bring the surfaces together to generate enough
energy within the material being crushed so that its
molecules fracture, or change alignment in relation to
(deformation), each other [15].
II. MATERIALS AND METHOD
The main components of the machine are: crushing
chamber, hopper, belt drive, pulley, power shaft, crushing
blade or crushing disc, electric motor, machine frame etc.
EJERS, European Journal of Engineering Research and Science
Vol. 1, No. 2, August 2016
The main function of the machine frame is to support,
guide and hold in accurate alignment all the moving
members of the operating machine. The machine frame was
constructed from angle bar to give rigidity and stability that
will withstand load and vibration. The discharge end is
located at the end of the disc while the crushing discs are
fixed to the main shaft and enclosed in the barrel. The
machine is powered by an electric motor via belt drive
connected to the main shaft that turns the disc crushers. The
hopper into which the plastic bottle is fed is located at the
top of machine (Appendix 1, 2 & 3). The design of the
plastic bottle crushing machine includes the determination
of the force required to crush the plastic bottles and this
required a proper selection of inexpensive materials for the
construction of each unit components. The bulk of the parts
of the machine were fabricated using mild steel, this is
because of it availability at relatively low cost in Nigeria
and good machining properties.
A. Operation of the machine
The raw materials (waste plastic bottles) are gathered from
Nigeria streets and prepared by flattening, to let out trapped
air. The neck is thereafter chopped off because it is thicker
than the remaining parts. The flattened waste plastic bottles
are placed under a guillotine and they are cut into chips.
These chips are thereafter fed into the hopper and passed
through the feed throat where the chips are conveyed by the
screw thread into the crushing discs where they are crushed
unto flakes. However, these crushed flakes contain granules
of small and large sizes which drop under gravity unto a
perforated conveyor belt that vibrates as it moves. The
perforation is about 5mm so that the small granules are able
to pass through it and received by a trough while the larger
ones remain on the conveyor belt and conveyed into another
trough which has orifice that deposit it into a slant placed
screw drive. This slant screw drive conveys the larger
particles through the manifold, back again into the hopper.
This process is repeated until the desired sizes of the
granules are obtained which is further used for production of
light or heavy dense polyethylene materials.
III. DESIGN CONSIDERATION
A. Crushing force
The crushing force is the force requires to crush the
plastic bottles to the desire sizes and is calculated from the
(3.1).
𝑇 = 𝐹𝑟 (3.1)
Where,
T=Torque
F=Crushing force
r=radius or length of the crank
B. Crushing power required
The power requires to crush plastic bottle wastes is given
by (3.2);
𝑃𝜔
𝑃 = 60 (3.2)
Where,
P=Power required
𝜔=angular velocity and is given by (3.3)
2𝜋𝑁
𝜔= (3.3)
60
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 EJERS, European Journal of Engineering Research and Science
Vol. 1, No. 2, August 2016

Where, IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

N=Required speed The result obtained with plastic crushing machine is
shown in Table I. The machine through put capacity is given
C. Determination of belt length by (4.1):
The belt length can be obtaine as: 𝑀
𝜋 𝐷1 +𝐷2 𝑀𝑇𝐶 = (4.1)
𝑇𝑚𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒
𝐿 = 2𝐶 + 2 (𝐷1 + 𝐷2 ) + 4𝐶
(3.4)
Where,
MTC = Machine through put capacity
D. Distance between driven and driving pulley
M = Mass of plastic bottle wastes
The centre to centre distance between driving and driven
Tmachine = Machine crushing time
pulley is given as:
𝐶 = 2𝐷1 + 𝐷2 (3.5) As shows in Table I, testing with the plastic crushing
Where; machine was carried out twenty times with different masses
D1 = Diameter of the driver
of plastic wastes that vary in weight. The average of waste
D2 = Diameter of the driving plastic bottle fed into crushing machine and the mass of
C= Centre to centre distance between driving pulley and plastic bottle properly crushed to require sizes were
driven pulley calculated and it was used to determine the efficiency of the
plastic crushing machine as shown in (4.2) and (4.3).
E. Design for speed ratio for belt drive ∑
Velocity ratio for belt drive is the ratio between the velocity 𝐴𝑣𝑒. = (4.2)
𝑁
of the driver and the follower (driven). It may be expressed
𝑂𝑢𝑡𝑝𝑢𝑡
mathematically as: 𝐶𝐸𝑓𝑓. = × 100 (4.3)
𝑁2 𝐷 𝐼𝑛𝑝𝑢𝑡
= 1 (3.6) 51.81
𝑁1 𝐷2 𝐶𝐸𝑓𝑓 = 60.84 × 100 = 85.16%
Where,
N1 = speed of the driver The crushing efficiency obtained (85.16%) shows that the
N2 = speed of the follower machine is good and its performance was satisfactory.
Therefore;

F. Determination of lap angle TABLE I: RESULT OBTAINED WITH PLASTIC CRUSHING MACHINE
The equation is expressed as follow: Mass of plastic fed Mass of plastic Time taken to MTC
𝐷2 −𝐷1 N into crushing properly crushed in crushed plastic
𝛼 = 180 ± 2 sin−1 ( ) (3.7) machine (kg) to desire size (kg) (s)
(kg/s)
2𝐶
1 5.2 3.5 60 0.087
2 11.5 8.0 110 0.105
Where;
α1 = Angle of lap for driving pulley (rad) 3 18.8 13.9 128 0.147

α2 = Angle of lap for driven pulley 4 22.4 17.3 150 0.149

C = Centre to centre distance between driving pulley and 5 26.7 23.3 186 0.120
driven pulley 6 32.8 27.5 252 0.130

7 38.4 34.7 306 0.125

G. Design for shaft
60PKL 8 45.5 39.8 354 0.129
TD = (3.8) 0.151
2πN 9 65.4 49.3 432
TD= Design torque 0.124
10 68.6 54.9 552
KL= Load factor=1.75 for line shaft 0.107
11 72.3 59.7 678
Thus, for diameter of shaft
16 12 80.9 68.1 726 0.111
𝜏𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝜋𝑑 3 √(𝐾𝑏 𝑀)2 + (𝐾𝑡 𝑇𝑑 )2 (3.9)
13 82.1 71.1 834 0.098
Where, 0.101
14 85.2 73.8 846
M=Bending moment
15 87.0 74.7 906 0.096
For suddenly applied load (heavy shock), the following
16 89.2 77.3 972 0.092
values are recommended for Kb and Kt
Kb= 2 to 3 17 92.4 80.4 1014 0.091

Kt= 1.5 to 3 18 94.8 82.8 1038 0.091

Selecting material of shaft SAE 1030 19 97.5 87.5 1074 0.091
Sut= 527MPa 20 100.0 88.5 1092 0.092
Syt=296MPa 2.237
∑ 1216.7 1036.1 11,708
τmax≤0.30Syt 0.112
Ave. 60.84 51.81 585.4
τmax≤0.18Sut
Where,
From Fig. 3, large mass of plastic bottle wastes was
Sut= Ultimate yield strength
crushed to the required sizes and graph of MTC (plot of time
Syt= Yield strength
taken to crushed plastic against mass of plastic fed into

28
 EJERS, European Journal of Engineering Research and Science
Vol. 1, No. 2, August 2016

crushing machine) shows that the larger the mass of plastic APPENDIX 2
waste bottles, the longer the crushing time (Fig. 4).
120 Mass of
Mass of plastic wastes

100 plastic fed

80 into crushing
60 machine
40
20 Mass of
plastic
0 Crushing chamber component
properly
0 10 20 30
crushed in
Number of test to desire size
APPENDIX 3
Fig. 3. Plot of mass of plastic wastes

1200
1000
Crushing time

800
Plot of
600
crushing time
400 against mass
of plstic
200 wastes
Label isometric view of plastic crushing machine
0
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