Experimental Investigation and Multi Objective Optimization of Pin Mill for pulverizing Jaggery using Grey Relational Analysis

Abstract

Jaggery is a traditional sweetener and more nutritious than sugar. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for Jaggery in the global market. Shelf life and user-friendly appearance are the two biggest challenges. If Jaggery is available in powdered form, due to value addition, more earnings are possible to sugarcane producers-farmers. A systematic approach is proposed to optimize the design parameters of Pin Mill Pulverizer Machine for pulverizing Jaggery are derived based on Taguchi method with grey relational analysis. The main objective of this study is to derive a higher production rate (yield), lower dust content, and good quality of Jaggery powder. Design configuration such as pin diameter, number of pins, pitch circle diameter (PCD), pin configuration, speed of the machine, and feeding rate are the three process parameters that are considered with various levels. The behavior of the multiple performance characteristics are analyzed using grey relational analysis. The grey relational grade normalizes the contradicting performance indices. From eighteen experiments based on the orthogonal array of L18, the best combination of parameters was found. The results indicate that, compared with Taguchi’s method the proposed method found to be technically sound. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method effectively improves the grinding performance of the pin mill.