Abstract
This research was carried out to examine the optimum design conditions of a vertical small-scale milling machine where the rough rice is processed directly into the white rice in one pass. Effects of the main spindle speed, feed screw pitch and ceramic coating length of the roller on various milling characteristics such as white rice processing capacity, electric energy consumption, rice temperature increase, broken rice ratio, moisture reduction, outlet force and crack ratio increase were studied. The results are as follows. 1. The maximum white rice processing capacity and the lowest crack ratio increase, were obtained from a machine with specification: main spindle speed of 970rpm having a feed screw pitch of 19㎜. 2. The minimum electric energy consumption was obtained with the main spindle speeds of 900 and 970rpm respectively having a feed screw pitch of 19㎜. 3. The rice temperature was increased as the feed screw pitch decreased and the main spindle speed increased. 4. Broken rice ratio was relatively low with the range of 0.8∼1.3%. 5. Moisture content loss was with the range of 0.05∼0.4%. 6. The highest outlet force was 0.72kg$\_$f/ with 900rpm of the main spindle speed and 19㎜ of the feed screw pitch and the lowest outlet force was 0.18∼0.34kg$\_$f/ with 970rpm of the main spindle speed and 16㎜ of the feed screw pitch. 7. The optimum design conditions for the vertical small-scale milling machine were obtained at 970rpm of the main spindle speed, 19㎜ of the feed screw pitch and 20㎜ of the ceramics coating length.