Some Physical Properties of Pineapple Leaves for Chopping Machine

Abstract

The production of pineapple residue is increases in line with pineapple production in Malaysia. In order to overcome this issue, a conceptual design of harvesting and chopping machine will be developed to process the pineapple leaves. The combined-chopper is important to be developed as an alternative to the current manual handling method such as left on the ground until next plantation or burnt. This new machine will be introduced to harvest and able to chop the pineapple leaves into smaller size. This chopper machine will be comprised of a specialized blade to cut the pineapple leaves with a rotating conveyor to collect the harvested leaves prior chopping into the selected size. In this study, the average length and width of three most popular cultivars in Malaysia such as MD2 (V1), Josapine (V2) and Nanas Madu Kaca (A 11) (V3) were recorded. The results indicated that the average length and width of MD2 pineapple leaves were 742.00 mm and 58.00 mm respectively. The average length and width of Josapine pineapple leaves were 685.50 mm and 56.70 mm respectively. The average length and width of Nanas Madu Kaca (A 11) pineapple leaves were 817.75 mm and 56 mm respectively. These physical characteristics of pineapple leaf in important to design the chopper machine for pineapple leaves after the harvesting process.