Diseño de un secador de cacao para la nacionalidad indígena chachi, de la comunidad del Naranjal, cantón Quinindé-Esmeraldas : diseño secador de silo de pisos.

Abstract

Ecuador is one of the main exporters of cocoa worldwide due to the appropriate environmental conditions in the country for the cultivation of this fruit, being Esmeraldas one of the main producer provinces. Within this context, 1.300 families in the indigenous Chachi community in Esmeraldas depend directly on the production of cocoa, hence it is important to dynamize its production to generate greater opportunities of commercialization and benefit the community. To this end, the present project was developed in search of an alternative to improve the bean dehydration process by means of a three-story silo type artificial cocoa drying machine, ensuring a quality product. For the design of the dryer, the processes of the benefits of cocoa were studied, the technical specifications were determined along with the dimensioning of the elements of the machine, the selections of the most suitable materials for its manufacturing and the cost analysis associated with equipment manufacturing. The design of the dryer was performed using the Autodesk software packages, Fusion, and Inventor with an educational license, with which the modeling of the machine, the simulation of the main elements, the dryer assembly, subassembly, and workshop drawings were elaborated. Finally, the comparison between the safety factors as a result of the calculation and simulation of the main components was obtained along with a contrastive analysis of the designed dryer with respect to other available machines in the market based on aspects such as price, capacity, and dry time.