© 2018, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 6.171 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 3806 MODIFIED DESIGN OF A SELECTED DOMESTIC CHINCHIN CUTTING MACHINE Emmanuel Olatunji OLUTOMILOLA Lecturer II, Mechanical Engineering Department, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. ----------------------------------------------------------------------***----------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract - There exists various designs of well-developed chinchin cutting machines in the market today. The vast market for the product (especially in West Africa) necessitates every possible technological approach in ensuring optimal production (reducing overall production cost, lead time and the stress involved in its production). The existing chinchin cutting machines were all observed to have a common major set-back, which is the fact that their design only makes it possible for the chinchin pasta to be cut into strands; thus the operator would have to spend more time and expend greater energy in cutting these strands into smaller rectangular shapes with knife. This problem forms the basis for this research work, as its aim/objective is to improve on the existing design, such that the machine can cut the pasta into desired shape and length. The major innovation introduced is a system whereby the cutting shaft is designed such that it has small projected blades, machined along its circumference at specific and well calculated circumferential distances from each other, depending on the required length of the pasta to be cut. The design was done using Pro/Engineer Wildfire 5.0 software. It can be inferred from the developed model of the domestic chinchin cutting machine and from its design analysis as well as from the results obtained that the machine will serve its intended design purpose when fully developed and evaluated. Keywords: Modified Design, selected, domestic, chinchin, cutting machine 1. INTRODUCTION Chinchin has been said to be a traditional Nigerian snack that is prepared from cereal flour, butter, milk and egg to form a stiff paste, which is then deep fried or baked until it turns golden-brown and crisp [1, 2]. It has been known to be a popular crunchy and delightful fried snack in West Africa, especially in Nigeria, amongst several age brackets [1, 3]. It is a sweet, hard, donut-like baked or fried dough and can be cut into different sizes and shapes [4]. It comes in handy at home, in the office, at parties, in reception halls, air-crafts and at schools among others. Moreover, domestic chinchin production has been from time immemorial, and it is extremely stressful and time consuming; to a large extent, this has limited the domestic production capacity and quality of this snack. Considering the popular demand for this snack, the need arises for large scale domestic production [5]. The initial designs of domestic chinchin cutting machines that are available in Nigerian markets today can only cut rolled flour into strands as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. After the machine might have cut the rolled flour into strands, the manual means of cutting with a knife is usually employed by operators in order to achieve the desired shapes and sizes [6]. This method has been found to be time-consuming and onerous. There is a need to alleviate the human power expended, reduce production time and improve the quantity/quality of the chinchin. In order to address the challenge posed by the existing design of chinchin machines to domestic production of the snack, it has become necessary to improve on the design of a domestic chinchin cutting machine. Figure 1: Ready to be cut rolled chinchin dough International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056 Volume: 05 Issue: 05 | May-2018 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072