Design, Development and Testing of Low Capital and Operational Cost Shrub Cutting Machine

The machine to be designed and developed with a view to resolve one ofthe irksome problems of this institute has been facing every year. This institute issurrounded by vast non- fertile land area of about 200 acres, which becomes widelyoccupied by numerous breads of bushes and shrubs during post-rainy season. Due tothis unwanted proliferation of such verdant institute gets abysmal look and thatdumps off massive fund every year to get rid off it. The shrubs cutting machinescomprises a main body (chassis) with two wheels and handle to provide movementin the field. One power unit (small S.I. engine) is mounted on this to give power forthe cutting blades through small transmission mechanism. The cutting blades aremounted on a small shaft. Which actually perform the cutting operation? We intendto develop a machine which would provide better cutting action of bushes with lowcapital and operational cost.With reference to literature available there are many types of lawn mowers, bushcutters and lawn tractors are exist in the market, which may not fulfill the capital andoperational cost criteria. The main concentration of our design is the cost andoperational ease. During design, development and fabrication the machine wasundergone several laboratory. Field tests like; determination of torque and forceanalysis, load and speed test on design specifications (for shaft, gear and bearings),impact test, balance test and finally cutting output test. After testing we succeed tohave a satisfactory performance, though it requires further more improvementswhich can be done in due course of time in stage II of the project.