Experimental Evaluation of Electric Driven Butter

Extraction System
Annamalai A
Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Tiruchirappalli, India
annamalai@bhel.in
Sundareswaran K
Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Tiruchirappalli, India
kse@@nitt.edu
S.P. Simon
Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Tiruchirappalli, India
sishajpsimon@nitt.edu
Kevin Ark Kumar
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
Tiruchirappalli, India
kevin@bhel.in

Abstract— Traditionally, butter extraction is done by
churning a rod in curd or fresh milk cream. The duration of the
churning process depends on a few parameters namely quantity,
quality and initial temperature of the curd and speed of the
churning. Usually, butter extraction is done in open loop and the
process is stopped when good quality of butter is separated. The
main objective of this research paper is to reiterate the
traditional manufacturing process of butter extraction system by
1. Design a belt – drive based butter extraction machine
with the help of an electric motor. This design will
include both the electrical and mechanical aspects.
2. Fabrication of proto type as per proposed design.
movement of the stirring rod in the curd or fresh cream. In
dairy industries, the butter extraction process is mechanized
with the help of electric motor, where the production of large
quantity of butter is involved. However, a manual butter
extraction system used in household application, where less
quantity of butter is produced. This is the main source of
income for the farmers in rural regions. Also, note that this
traditional butter extraction system requires drudgery and
tedious. Yet, lacks in quality of butter produced and efficiency.
So we can develop a new machine which is capable of
addressing the aforementioned problems. Hence, this paper
presents development of ac motor drive for butter extraction
which will be very useful to farming community.

3. Performance evaluation of developed butter extraction
system.
The successful development of this butter extraction system will
reduce drudgery and time taken associated with the conventional
method of butter extraction and therefore will increase
productivity rate, saving time, utilization and simplicity in use.
Keywords— Butter Extraction, AC Motor, Power Switch,
Churn, Controller, Design, Testing, Belt-drive system
I. INTRODUCTION
India has emerged as the world’s largest producers of dairy
products in terms of volume of milk production, with annual
production of 160 million metric tonnes in 2017, which is 50%
more than the United States and 66.66 % more than that of
China. In India, butter is one of the most commonly consumed
dairy product, and is used as a basic ingredient in the food
industry and for cooking in houses. In 2017 calendar year, 5.4
million metric tonnes of butter was produced, out of which
5.392 million metric tonnes was consumed locally (Source:
https://www.indexmundi.com). Virtually all the butter that is
produced is consumed domestically and there is very little
quantity to trade. So far, trade in dairy products specifically
butter has been very small relative to production and
consumption. However, the consumption of butter is increased
day by day. Primarily, butter is produced by the unorganized
small scale sector in agricultural community, where, butter is
extracted by periodic and continuous forward and backward
II. PROPOSED BUTTER EXTRACTION SYSTEM
Butter extraction is the process of extracting butter from
curd or fresh cream by churning process. The end products of
the churning process are butter and buttermilk. At the
beginning, churning process demands high speed, so that, curd
is churned at high speed until butter grain appears. Gradually,
speed decreased so that the larger cluster of butter grains
clubbed together to form butter. Finally, buttermilk is drained
off and butter is collected. Thus, completes the extraction
process. Basically, butter is the fatty milk-by products, which is
very soft and expandable when temperature increases and
becoming harder if temperature is low. Further, the time taken
for converting curd to butter by churning process largely
depends on the quality of the curd used and initial temperature
of curd or cream. The basic block of butter extraction system
comprises of AC power source, Bi-directional manual switch
or Timer, electric motor, Belt-Drive system, Controller circuit
and churning Rod. The main components of butter extraction
system used in this proposed system is shown in Figure. 1
A. Power Source
Power source shall be alternating current (a.c), direct
current (d.c) or renewable power like solar or wind. Alternating
current are generally available from power grid. Depends upon
the application, single phase or three phase a.c system is used.
Direct current can be obtained from rectified d.c i.e. output
from a.c to d.c converter or battery. Renewable power may be

XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE

obtained from solar photovoltaic system or wind park. For our
design, single phase a.c power source is considered.
Fig – 1 Block Diagram of Proposed Butter Extraction System
B. Power Switch
During butter extraction, electric motor to drive stirring rod
in back and forth direction. This change of direction of motor
rotation can be achieved by appropriate winding connections
on the switch. The switch may be a bi-directional manual,
timer or power switch. For our design, we have proposed to use
the timer switch. The control circuit consists of one timer
switch and two relays. These relays will toggle each other
based on the oscillation time set on the timer. By changing the
relay from R1 to R2 or R2 to R1, motor changes its direction of
rotation accordingly. This makes the stirring rod to rotate back
and forth. Thus, agitate the curd or cream.
C. Electric Motor
The electric motor is mainly used to convert electrical
energy to mechanical energy. The electric motor may be an a.c
motor or d.c motor. The a.c motors are the most frequently
used motors because electrical power is normally available in
the form of alternating current. The a.c motor shall be
synchronous or asynchronous type. Single phase motors are
widely used in home and industrial application, because it
combines all the advantages offered by the electrical energy
such as low manufacturing cost, ability to operate from single
phase supply, reliability, clean handling and simple controls -
together with those of simple construction and its great
versatility to be adapted to wide ranges of loads.
D. Belt – drive System
The belt drive system consists of a shaft, pulley and belt,
which transmits power from the electric motor to the churning
units.
E. Churing Process
Belt-drive system couples the ac motor and churning unit
which consists of driven pulley, stirring rod and blades. Once,
the curd or cream is loaded into the churning vessel. Then,
churning process is started and churning is carried out with the
help of stirring rod in order to obtain butter granules. The
churning is continued until the butter and butter milk separates.
Butter granules are further processed to get homogeneous mass
of butter. The control circuit provides the required oscillation
time. The stirring rod back and forth action takes place due to
change in direction of rotation of single phase AC induction
motor.
F. Controller
Butter extraction process said to be a non-linear due to
various speed requirements. In order to understand the butter
extraction characteristics with time, we have to conduct several
open loop experimentations with different speeds and
temperature based on curd quantity and relative density. Then,
the data obtained will be employed for closed loop control. The
nature of control logic will be decided based on the
experimental data analysis. The speed control of the single-
phase a.c. induction motor achieved by changing the
magnitude of AC supply voltage with constant frequency.
Thus, leads to speed variation on stirring side accomplished
with the help of belt drive system. The experiments will be
carried out in open loop system for our study.
III. FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
The design of the butter extraction system has to fulfil the
following functional requirements.
 The machine should be able to extract the maximum
butter in lesser time.
 The machine should be compact in design and easy to
operate.
 The speed regulation of the churner should be achieved
by belt-drive system.
 The machine should be simple in construction and
capable of modifying, if any changes are required to
achieve a desired performance.
IV. ELECTRICAL AND MECHANICAL DESIGN
The butter extraction system was designed in order to
addresses the various electrical and mechanical aspects. The
electrical aspects consists of requirements of induction motor
rating like power, speed and torque etc based on load. These
electrical parameters of the machine was be obtained by
mathematical design calculations. The mechanical aspects of
the butter extraction system were ascertained by calculating the
necessary design parameters of belt drive system like sizing of
pulleys, length of belt, selection of the materials, dimensioning
of stirring rod and ac motor mounting arrangement etc.
Fig – 2 Circuit diagram of proposed Butter extraction system
The key components of the butter extraction systems are motor This equation reveals that the torque developed by the shaft is
and belt drive system. The design process of butter extraction directly proportional to the cubic value of diameter of shaft.
system consists of selection of motor type and its rating and Table-I shows the descriptions of symbol used in equations.
dimensioning of belt-drive system. In this section, the
mathematical design calculation of sizing of AC motor and belt
drive systems were presented. The circuit diagram of proposed P  T    
butter extraction system is shown in Fig.2.

A. Selection and Sizing of AC Motor 2  N

The working principle of butter extraction system reveals    
that, the agitation of curd or cream to be done continuously in 60
both forward and backward directions with the help of stirring
rod, until butter separates from curd. For this type bi- Hence, now power transmitted by the motor shaft will be
directional rotation requirements, a single phase AC induction
motor was selected for our design and its widely used for this
2  N  T
type of applications. The speed of the single-phase a.c. P   
induction motor adjusted by applying the proper supply voltage 60
amplitude and frequency or by changing the magnitude of
supply voltage amplitude with constant frequency. Primarily,
the sizing of a.c motor starts with the calculation load torque. TABLE I. DESCRIPTIONS OF SYMBOL USED IN EQUATIONS
Then, obtain the angular velocity at the motor shaft. Finally,
calculate the power transmitted by the motor shaft. The motor Symbol Descriptions Units
shaft is the central element of any machine. The main function τ Torsional stress induced at the outer N/mm²
of motor shaft is to transfer mechanical power from one surface of the shaft
rotating member to another. Thus, it is subjected to torque due
to power transmission and bending moment due to reactions on r Shaft radius mm
the members that are supported by them. The motor shaft was
made of solid material and having a circular cross-section of d Shaft diameter mm
area A. Shear stress acting on the motor shaft is zero at center J Polar moment of inertia mm4
axis and maximum at outer surface due to the nature of circular
cross section. Let us consider the motor shaft having a diameter T Developed torque by the shaft N-m
of ‘d’ and length ‘L’ and ‘T’ will be the torque developed by
the shaft. Then, the torsional equation of the shaft will be  Angular velocity m/s

N Motor Speed rpm

 T
    P Power transmitted by the shaft W
r J
D1 Diameter of the driver pulley mm
It can be re-arranged as D2 Diameter of the driven pulley mm
N1 Speed of the driver pulley rpm

T J    N2 Speed of the driven pulley rpm
r
For a circular cross section of motor shaft, polar moment of Based on the above equations, the power transmitted by shaft
inertia is was calculated. The obtained power rating of motor used in
butter extraction machine was 80 W at rotating speed of 1440
rpm .

J d4   B. Dimensioning of Belt-Drive System
32 Belt drive systems are widely used in industrial application
due to inherent advantage it possesses. It can transmit
With the help of calculated polar moment of inertia and mechanical power from one system to another. It acts as a
diameter of shaft, we can deduce to the torque developed by shock or vibration absorber, it can take care of misalignment
the motor shaft. between the driven and the driver system to some extent. The
belt drive system operates under the friction principle, which
means that the friction between the belt and the pulley is

T   d3   responsible for transmitting mechanical power from one
16 system to the other. At first, the driving pulley will give a
motion to the belt. Finally, generated motion of the belt by
driving pulley will be transmitted to the driven pulley. The
amount of power transferred depends on presence of friction
between the pulley and the belt surfaces. i.e. the tension on
which the belt is placed on the pulley. For dimensioning of
belt-drive system, let us consider a belt is wrapped around two
pulleys, each having diameter of D1 and D2 and their
corresponding speed will be N1 and N2 respectively. The
smaller pulley (D1) to be the driving pulley which is connected
to motor shaft. This pulley will transfer motion to the belt and
the motion of the belt in turn will give a rotation to the larger
driven pulley (D2). The driven pulley is attached with stirring
rod. Thus, gives the rotational motion to stirring rod, which
will agitate the curd in the churning vessel and separate the
butter. The selected induction motor used to run the machine
had a speed of 1440 rpm. Hence, 1:4 ratio was used in belt -
drive assembly, which proportionally reduced the speed of the
stirring unit to 360 rpm. We can change the rotation of stirring
rod by changing the rotation of motor direction. Fig – 3 Functional drawing of proposed butter extraction system
The output speed of the belt-drive system was calculated by Then, electric motor mounted on M.S. structure frame and
motor shaft was attached with driver pulley through ball
Input, rpm( Motor)
Output, rpm( StirringRod )    bearing, which provides mechanical support to motor shaft and
GearRatio allows it to rotate freely with minimum friction, on its own
 axis. Subsequently, driven pulley and stirring blades were
When a small pulley drives a larger pulley, speed reduction connected through stirring rod which was made up of stainless
takes place and vice versa. The diameters for driver and driven steel. Ball bearing was used at stirring unit to ensure firm
pulley were calculated by coupling of driven pulley and stirring blade and to avoid
eccentric operation of the stirring rod. Finally, both the pulleys
were coupled via belt, which provides the mechanical power
D1  N1  D2  N2    transfer from motor side to churning side and stirring blade
was positioned at center of the churn vessel where curd or fresh
cream was placed. Figure – 4 shows the fabricated butter
For selected value of diameter of driver pulley D1 as 30 mm, extraction system. With the help of belt-drive system, we
N1 as 1440 rpm, and N2 as 360 rpm. Then, the calculated obtained the desired speed at stirring unit to agitate the curd or
driven pulley diameter (D2) was obtained as 120 mm. cream. The forward and backward motion of stirring rod inside
the churn vessel was achieved by changing the rotation of
V. FABRICATION OF BUTTER EXTRACTION motor by timer switch for fixed oscillation time. Suitable
SYSTEM provision was made for adjusting stirring blade height
Based on the design calculations, the functional drawing of depending upon the quantity of curd and placement of churn
proposed butter extraction system was developed using vessel. Also, necessary provision was given to replace the
AutoCAD software. The plan view drawing with overall motor, belt, stirring rod and pulleys for further modification if
dimensions are shown in Fig.3. All dimensions are in mm. It is required.
very important to identify and select proper materials for
fabrication of various components of butter extraction system,
keeping in view of their robustness and quality of the material.
The standard, common sizes, semi-finished and full finished
items, which were easily available in local market were
procured and used in fabrication. Butter extraction machine
was designed and fabricated in nearby workshop at Trichy city.
The fabrication work was done in two stages. First stage was
fabrication of driver unit, which consists of single phase AC
induction motor, motor shaft, ball bearing and driver pulley
arrangement. Second stage was fabrication of stirring unit,
which comprises of driven pulley, stirring rod and stainless
steel churn vessel. These two units were coupled via belt and
all supporting structures were made up of M.S square steel
hollow section. Initially, all the support structures were made
as per functional drawing.
Fig – 4 Fabricated butter extraction system
 VI. EXPERIMENTAL FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS extraction are reduced considerably. Hence, oscillation
The developed butter extraction system has the holding duration has much significance as far as total time of process
capacity of 5L and working capacity of 3L Curd. Experiments are concerned.
were conducted on developed butter extraction machine on
09th November 2018 about 10.00hrs at NIT, Tiruchirappalli,
India. The curd which was used for experiment was procured
from the Tamil Nadu Co-Operative Milk Producers Federation
Limited (aavin), Trichy. Figure -4 shows the experimental
setup of butter extraction system with control circuit. We have
investigated two scenarios to evaluate the performance of the
machine. In first scenario, we experimented the impact of
stirring speed on churning time with various oscillation at
different quantities of curd. From this, we obtained the speed
characteristics of the machine. In second scenario, we
experimented the effect of different churning time with various
oscillation at different quantities on the yield of butter. Thus,
provided the quantity of butter extracted from different
quantities of curd. Initially, several trials of churning were
conducted without loading the curd in churn vessel to ensure
the stable operation of machine. Subsequently, the curd was
loaded to its rated working capacity, and churned at different
oscillation time. Once, butter was extracted it was separated Case -1 Osc. Time : 10s at 24°C Temperature
from buttermilk and stored in refrigerator. The experiment was
carried out with different lots of curd. The various oscillation Case -2 Osc. Time : 20s at 24°C Temperature
time for motor forward and reverse rotation was provided by a
timer switch GIC-2A5DT5. The available timing ranges of this Case -3 Osc. Time : 30s at 24°C Temperature
switch is from 1 second to 10 hours. This timer switch reverses
the polarity of the applied voltage to motor at preset intervals. Fig – 5 Effect of churning time on different curd quantities
The timer switch has got two contact points, one contact, C1 is Scenario- II:
for forward rotation polarity and the other contact C2 is for
reverse rotation polarity. The contacts C1 and C2 from the Effect of different churning time with various oscillation at
timer switch were taken to the ac motor through different quantities on the yield of butter:
electromechanical relays R1 and R2 for forward rotation In this scenario, experiment was carried out in three cases to
operation and for reverse rotation operation respectively. check the effect of churning time at different curd quantities on
Extensive experiments were performed on the butter extraction the yield of butter. For case 1, 2 and 3, oscillation time was set
system in order to have a comprehensive conclusion on as 10s, 20s, 30s respectively, on the timer switch.
different quantities of curd being stirred with numerous values
of preset oscillation timings. Many parameters were recorded
during the course of experiment which includes time required
to churn curd for a given lot with different oscillation time and
yield of butter. The results and discussions of the experiment
carried out during evaluating the performance of butter
extraction system are presented in following two scenarios and
inferences have been drawn and possible reasons for them are
given to possible extent.
Scenario- I:
Effect of stirring speed on churning time with various
oscillation at different quantities:
In this scenario, experiment was carried out in three cases
to check the impact of stirring speed on churning time at
different curd quantities. For case 1, 2 and 3, oscillation time
was set as 10s, 20s, 30s respectively, on the timer switch. In
each cases, experiment was carried out with the curd quantity Case -1 Osc. Time : 10s at 24°C Temperature
of 1L, 2L and 3L and time taken for butter extraction was
measured and recorded. The measured data are plotted in Case -2 Osc. Time : 20s at 24°C Temperature
Figure -5. It can be seen that with increased volume of the
curd, time taken for butter extraction also increases. Further, Case -3 Osc. Time : 30s at 24°C Temperature
increase in oscillation duration, the total time taken for butter Fig – 6 Butter yield on different curd quantities
In each cases, experiment was carried out with the curd
quantity of 1L, 2L and 3L and the extracted butter weight was
measured and recorded. The measured data are plotted in
Figure -6. The interaction effect between the stirring speed on
churning time showed significant effect on yield. The yield of
the butter was recorded to be highest 132g at oscillation
duration of 20s for 3-liter curd. The butter obtained at 30s
oscillation duration found weak and leaky. From both
scenarios, the experimental result shows that, the butter
produced at 20s oscillation gives high butter yields with lowest
extraction time with good quality of butter.

VII. CONCLUSION
To help farmers in underdeveloped regions, an electric
driven butter extraction system was designed and implemented
in order to avoid the huge demands of physical work and
improved butter extraction time and quantity of butter has been
presented in this paper. The design was developed successfully
and experimented with respect to yield of butter and time taken
for extraction and other input - output variables, as influenced
by churning speed, duration of oscillation, moisture content
and initial temperature. The operational results showed that the
design was simple, user-friendly, portable and easy to clean. It
gave a high extraction rate of 90-95% butter in 16 min,
compared with the unimproved traditional churner, which took
over 2 hr. to produce the same amount.
The future work will be taken up with the following objectives:
 Based on the results obtained from the open system
experiments, suitable digital control logic will be
employed in closed loop control.
 The suitable closed loop control strategy will be
designed and implemented in the developed butter
extraction system for optimum butter extraction based
on multi input variables like temperature, relative
density, quantity etc.

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