DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A GARLIC Allium sativum PEELING PROTOTYPE

The aim of the present study is to develop and evaluate garlic peeling prototype by centrifugation and friction to be used in home and small processing units as restaurants and hotels. Experiments were carried out with two varieties of garlic cloves, three numbers of fins (one fin, two fins and three fins) and three rotating disk speed (1600, 1800 and 2000 r.p.m). Results showed that the highest values of productivity were 4.00 and 1.47 kg/h for red garlic RG and white WG garlic respectively at disk speed of 1600 r.p.m and number of fins of 1 fin, the lowest values of cloves damage percentage were 2.26 % and 6.92 % for RG and WG garlic respectively for disk speed of 1600 r.p.m and fins number of 3fin and the lowest values of unpeeled cloves percentage were 5.29 % and 19.20 % for RG and WG garlic respectively for disk speed of 2000 r.p.m and fins number of 1fin. Comparing peeling efficiency for the same operational conditions clear that the peeling efficiency for RG garlic was 85.1 % compared to 57.6 % for WG garlic. The dimensional analysis was reasonably accepted for predicting the peeling efficiency with coefficient of determination 0.978 that helps in producing large scale peeling machines of garlic cloves.