CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Fruit have been cultivated for the last 2000 years in Southern China and South-East Asia, one variety the citron and south-east was carried to the middle east sometime between 400 and 600 BC. Arab traders transported different kinds of fruit like orange to eastern Africa and the Middle East sometime between 100 and 700 AD and during the Arab occupation of Spain, Citrus fruits first arrived in southern Europe from there they were carried to the new world by explores where they spread to fluoride and Brazil (By the sixteenth century by 1800 citrus fruits achieved world wide distribution). In the 1890s, the demand for them greatly increased because physicians discovered that drinking the juice of organs or other citrus fruit could prevent survey, A vitamin deficiency disease.
The popularity of juice dramatically increased again with the development of the commercial orange juice industry in the late 1920. In its early day, the juice industry primary relied on salvased fruit, which was unstable for regular consumption because it was badly coloured in 1944 scientist found a way to concentrate fruit juice in a vacuum and freeze it with destroying the flavour or vitamin content.
In 1985 when reconstituted and NFC juice first out sold the frozen type. Today commercial aseptic packaging allows RTD juice to be marketed without refrigerated storage the current world-wide market for fruit juice is more than and $2.5 billion with the biggest area being the biggest in United States (USA) followed by Canada, Western Europe and Japan.
MOTIVATION
The motivation for doing this project was primarily an interest in undertaking a challenging project in an interesting area of fabrication. The opportunity to learn about a new area of design not covered in lectures was appealing. This area is possibly an area that I might work on at my second degree.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Fruits are seasonal, they are not available throughout the year. Hence, the need to construct or fabricate a machine that can extract juice in order to enable availability and storage at all time. Establishing good and efficient design of the machine has been matter of concern. As the demand for fruit juice consumption increase from time to time around the globe, the need for designing and constructing a fruit juice extracting machine with high efficiency becomes necessary.
1.3 PURPOSE/AIMS/OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The demand for juice production has significantly increased with time so this brought about the need for this project.
The objectives of this project are;
To reduce the bulkiness of the fruits in terms of size
To ease transportation in terms of size maximum quality of juice from the produce or fruit used.
Some fruit does not last for a long time after harvesting then there is need to process it into juice fruit to last for a period of time.
EXPECTED BENEFITS OF THE PROJECT
Increase technology development and self-reliance of youths in Nigeria. Create self-development, self-worth. Creation of employment for the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled youths of this country.
1.4 SCOPE OF PROJECT
The scope of this project ranges from:
Proper material selection to ensure quality product.
Proper measurements, cutting and welding of joints
Proper assembling of parts for construction of machines
Selection of juice yielding fruit to ensure optimum / proper running efficiency.
Carrying out of machine analysis.
1.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
This machine was designed mainly for the extraction of juice from succulent fruits like pineapple, orange etc. It cannot be used for extracting oil from oil bearing fruits or seeds like banana and mangoes etc. The machine is designed for squeezing of fruit not for pressing that is why fruits like mango and banana are not to be juice with it.
ASSUMPTIONS
There is need for the juice extraction machine that would significantly cater for the fruits harvested and which many households can afford. This is with due consideration to the following reasons:
Industrial juice extraction machines are too expensive to be purchased by some individuals.
For most of the Individuals, the cost of hiring the service of fruit processing is high with respect to the amount of fruit output.