Development of Gender-Friendly Power Ribboner for Extraction of Green Ribbon/Bast from Jute Plants

ABSTRACT

Jute (Corchorus Olitorius) universally recognized as a golden fiber is one of the important cash crops in eastern India. In jute plants apart from fiber, sticks also have diversified applications in various sectors. Therefore, an advanced fiber extraction machinery that can extract fiber through ribbon retting without breaking sticks is the need of the hour for jute-growing farmers. In the present study, a gender-friendly power ribboner has been designed, simulated, and developed by considering the anthropometric data of both male and female operators. The developed prototype consists of a pair of fluted crushing rollers with pressure absorbing unit, a pair of peeling rollers, a fiber conveyor, power transmission unit, and an electric motor. The structural analysis of the designed fluted crushing rollers showed that the designed model and selected material (nylon 66/6) can withstand 10 times more load than the actual. At the optimized conditions throughput capacity, extraction capacity, extraction efficiency, and ribbon losses of the developed prototype were obtained as 227 kg/h, 116 kg/h, 92.95%, and 5.3% respectively, while the overall desirability of 0.966 was achieved. Furthermore, with the adaptation of the developed machine, jute farmers can get approximately Rs. 525/quintal or 12% more income than the conventional practice.

黄麻是公认的黄金纤维，是印度东部重要的经济作物之一. 在黄麻厂，除了纤维外，棒在各个部门也有着多样化的应用. 因此，一种先进的纤维提取机器，可以在不折断棍子的情况下通过织带提取纤维，是黄麻种植农民当前的需求. 在本研究中，通过考虑男性和女性操作员的人体测量数据，设计、模拟和开发了一种性别友好的力量肋骨器. 开发的原型由一对带压力吸收装置的槽式破碎辊、一对剥皮辊、一台纤维输送机、动力传动装置和一台电动机组成. 对所设计的槽纹破碎辊的结构分析表明，所设计的型号和选用的材料（尼龙66/6）能够承受比实际高出10倍的载荷. 在优化的条件下，所开发的原型的生产能力、提取能力、提取效率和带损失分别为227 kg/h、116 kg/h、92.95%和5.3%，而总体期望值为0.966. 此外，通过改造开发的机器，黄麻农民可以获得约525卢比/夸脱的收入，比传统做法多12%.

KEYWORDS:

• Ribbon extraction
• ribbon retting
• anthropometry
• finite element analysis
• extraction efficiency and ribbon losses

关键词:

• 色带提取
• 色带脱胶
• 人体测量
• 有限元分析
• 提取效率和带损失

Introduction

Jute (Corchorus Olitorius) universally recognized as golden fiber is one of the important cash crops in eastern India (Banik et al. 2003) and is traditionally grown for the extraction of fiber, which is the cheapest natural industrial fiber in the region. In the global prospects, India ranked first position in jute production and accounts for approximately 60% of the world production (Rajpoot et al. 2019). It is majorly cultivated in the West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, and Meghalaya states of the country. In the year 2020–2021, approximately 93.54 million bales (1 bale = 180 Kg) of jute were produced (DAFW&DES 2022). This crop also plays an important place in the national economy of India by providing direct employment to 0.37 million farm families in agriculture, and 0.2 million workers in organized mills (Annual Report, Ministry of Textiles 2021–2022). Despite the commercial importance of the jute crop, since the past few years, it remains confined to a few states and stagnated at approximately 0.8 million, due to the problems associated with its cultivation, especially in retting operations.

The conventional jute retting operation is time-consuming: 18–21 days to complete the retting, water consuming: Plant: Water ratio = 1:20 or 432 cubic meters of water to rot per metric ton of raw jute (Majumdar et al. 2013), tedious: 19–21% of total energy input (Shambhu 2016), and environmental polluting: generate a lot of waste-water and methane gas emissions (Sadrmanesh and Chen 2018) process in nature. In addition to this, it also produces inferior quality fiber despite good crops being used which leads to a lower selling price in the market thus resulting in a lower net return to the farmers. Moreover, over the past few decades, water bodies are rapidly diminishing due to a variety of environmental factors. So, farmers are willing to adopt other extraction processes, so that retting can be completed in a short period with less resource use.

In this context, ribbon retting of jute is showing promising results by reducing the retting time by 5–6 days, water requirement from 1:20 to 1:10 substrate liquor ratio, and environmental pollution to almost one-fourth in comparison with the conventional retting. Besides that, this method also gives the assurance of the production of better quality fibers in terms of strength, fineness, color, luster, and overall, absolutely bark-free fiber (Banik et al. 2003). For executing the ribbon retting, it is necessary to extract the green ribbon from the plants either manually or mechanically. Since manually operated jute extractor has less output (20 kg dry fiber/h) with excessive labor requirement and time-consumption (Naik and Karmakar 2016). Therefore, the development of mechanical jute fiber extractors is the need of the hour that can extract a large quantity of green ribbon.

The mechanical fiber extraction machines work under dynamic conditions of high levels of compressive, shear, and impact force conditions. Hence, insufficient or lack of engineering and technical knowledge can cause breakdowns and failures of the machine’s components during field operations. Therefore, the constituent elements of such machines must be reliable and durable enough that can sustain the extreme external forces during operations. Hence, it is very important for designers and agricultural machinery manufacturers to predict the actual forces acting on the machine elements during operations, which will allow them to optimize the manufacturing parameters using predicted knowledge (Topakci et al. 2010). As a result of technological advancement in the field of computers and software, various researchers from different parts of the world had employed various design and simulation tools to develop mechanical extractors. One of the most powerful tools used for solving mechanical design problems is the finite element analysis (FEA) or finite element method (FEM). In the past, some researchers employed this technique for designing and simulating extractors for various natural fibers. Oreko et al. (2018) employed the FEA to simulate the rolling drum (raspador) of the plantain (pseudo-stem) fiber extraction machine for selecting the material for fabrication. Karim et al. (2021) used it for analyzing the strength of extracting rollers of a jute fiber extraction machine. Shinde, Magade, and Magade (2022) also designed and simulated the frame of a banana fiber extraction machine using static structural analysis under FEA in Ansys software. Similarly, Nageshkumar et al. (2022) employed the FEA technique to conduct the static structural analysis of a 3D-CAD model of sisal decorticator. They concluded that the FEA technique is a very effective and scientific approach and can be used to design and simulate mechanical components of fiber extractor machines.

With the amalgamation of past experience and prevailing technologies, some researchers have developed fiber extraction machines for jute and other allied fibrous crops, Chen et al. (1995) developed a decorticating system for jute, kenaf, and hemp crops. They integrated the developed system with a kenaf harvester for in-field harvesting-cum-separating operation. Tan et al. (2019) developed a ramie decorticator by employing the design concept of the longitudinal splitting and transverse pulling. They evaluated the developed prototype and found that the ramie bone was separated from phloem fiber by massive strips. Borkar and Das (2006) developed a jute decorticator to remove the green ribbon by breaking the stick into pieces with an extraction capacity of 18–20 kg dry fiber/h, Similarly, Karim et al. (2021) also developed a power-operated jute fiber extractor by considering the principle of ribbon extraction by breaking the stem into pieces. But due to the increasing demand for jute sticks as fencing material, composite material, domestic fuel, and many more, jute-growing farmers of India are highly interested to collect the whole jute sticks as by-products and seeking a mechanized solution that can extract the ribbon without breaking the sticks. Therefore, the present study was taken to develop a gender-friendly power ribboner for the extraction of green ribbon/bast from jute plants. The objectives of the present study are the design, simulation, and development of the prototype of a gender-friendly power ribboner to extract jute green ribbon and determination of the optimum machine parameters, for achieving maximum extracting capacity and efficiency using the full-factorial design.

Materials and method

A gender-friendly electric-powered ribboner was conceptualized, designed, developed, and evaluated and presented in this article.

Anthropometry consideration

In order to make the power ribboner gender-friendly and ergonomically feasible, anthropometric data of male and female workers of West Bengal, India was taken into consideration. For optimizing the dimensions and working zone of the machine, the body dimensions of both male and female workers of 5^th and 95^th percentile categories were taken (Gite and Majumder 2009; Vyavahare and Kallurkar 2012). The ribbon/bark separation operation in the machine includes the manual feeding of the jute sticks in the feeding zone at an angle between 60 and 80° followed by bending it to the horizontal position and subsequently twisting of jute sticks. In the feeding zone, sticks pass through a set of fluted rollers where they are partially crushed and separate the outer ribbon/bark from the plants. This operation leaves the outer ribbon/bark from the bottom of the machine through the belt conveyor and inner sticks without physical damage from the top of the machine as illustrated in Figure 1. If the height of the machine is not in accordance with the operator, then a lot of pressure and fatigue can be encountered on the waist, shoulder, or acromial and other parts of the body. Therefore, to avoid fatigue due to the bending posture of the operator, the height of the power ribboner was optimized using the 5^th percentile value of female shoulder height (acromial height) and 95^th percentile value of male waist height (Illiocrystale height) (Dewangan, Owary, and Datta 2010; Tewari et al. 2007).

Figure 1. Illustration of manual operation of developed gender-friendly power ribboner.

Design and simulation

On the basis of the ergonomically optimized dimensions, a 3D CAD model of the power ribboner was developed in the CATIA software as presented in Figure 2 and simulated in the ANSYS software.

Figure 2. Isometric view of developed gender-friendly power ribboner (a) Inner view (b) Outer view.

Simulation of fluted crushing roller

To examine the feasibility of the designed model of fluted crushing rollers and materials for fabrication, simulation tests were performed in the ANSYS (Version 15.0 workbench) software. For this purpose, the structural analysis feature under the FEM was employed. On the basis of a preliminary investigation, i.e., market price and availability of the raw material, load-bearing capacity, and suitability of the material for fabrication, nylon 66/6, mild steel, medium carbon steel, and high carbon steel were selected for the simulation of the fluted crushing rollers. For executing the structural analysis, initially, material libraries of the mentioned materials were created in the software workbench and for this purpose, data, as given in Table 1, were imported. After that, on the basis of the computed force required to break the jute stem using the flexural and tensile tests, the crushing rollers were loaded with the uniformly distributed load (UDL). After that, on the basis of the procedure, as described in the flow chart (Figure 3), the structural simulations of the fluted crushing roller with mentioned material properties were conducted. To examine the feasibility of the material and design for fabrication, total deformation and maximum principal elastic strain acting on the rollers were recorded and analyzed. The preliminary results of simulation tests show that all selected materials were suitable for fabrication. It was observed that mild steel, medium carbon steel, and high carbon steel-based fluted crushing rollers can withstand much higher loads than the actual load acting on the rollers but may increase the total weight of the machine. Therefore, further simulation was conducted with the nylon 66/6 and accordingly results were presented in the upcoming section.

Figure 3. Flow chart of static structural analysis using FEM in ANSYS workbench.

Table 1. Mechanical properties of simulated material.

S. N.	Material	Properties
		Young’s modulus (E), GPa	Poisson’s ratio (ν)	Density (ρ), kg/m^3	Tensile yield strength, Mpa	Tensile ultimate strength, MPa	Reference
1	Nylon 66/6	3.77	0.40	1190	90	93.1	MatWeb (n.d.) and Kohan (1986)
2	Mild steel	210	0.3	7850	320	400	Norton (2006)
3	High carbon steel	200	0.3	7850	525	685	Norton (2006)
4	Medium carbon steel	210	0.3	7850	345	550	Norton (2006)

Fabrication of gender-friendly power ribboner

After simulating the CAD model of a gender-friendly power ribboner, the prototype of the machine was fabricated. The developed ribboner consists of a pair of fluted crushing rollers with a pressure absorbing unit, a pair of peeling rollers, a belt conveyor, a frame, power transmission unit, and an electric motor to operate the ribboner. The developed prototype was operated with the help of a 2 hp electric motor, and power was transmitted to the different units with the help of belt-pulleys and gears mechanism as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Power transmission system of the developed ribboner.

The frame of the prototype with an overall dimension of L × W × H: 850 × 650 × 920 mm was fabricated using ASTM A36 mild steel. For feeding the green plant vertically in the feeding zone, a rectangular slot of L × W: 150 × 40 mm was provided on the top of the frame. For extracting the ribbon from green plants, a set of fluted crushing rollers of 80 mm in diameter and 300 mm in length were made from nylon 66/6 material and eight semi-circular profiles of 20 mm in diameter were cut on the periphery of it. The set of nylon 66/6 fluted crushing rollers was mounted on 650 mm length shafts in a parallel position but on a different plane and rotated in opposite directions for ensuring the positive holding of ribbon with minimum damage. The fluted rollers were also loaded with the spring-loaded pressure absolving unit to encounter excessive pressure on the rollers due to the variation in plant diameter during operation. The pressure-absorbing units were set at 1515 KPa and can take up to 1700 KPa.

To guide the extracted ribbon to peeling rollers, a triangular trough made of mild steel sheet was attached in between the fluted crushing roller assembly and peeling roller assembly. The peeling rollers were made from the MS hollow pipe of 100 mm in diameter and 300 mm in length and also the periphery of the rollers was covered with 10-mm-thickness rubber film. For better gripping of the ribbon, 2 mm clearance was provided between the rollers and rotated in an anticlockwise direction. In order to avoid clogging of fiber, a scrapper was provided at the bottom of peeling rollers. After that, the extracted fibers come out from the machine with the help of a canvas-made conveying system mounted at the bottom of the machine. The conveying system consists of a canvas belt (L×W×T: 920 × 270 × 3 mm) and two conveying rollers (D×W: 100 × 270 mm). During the preliminary evaluation of the machine, it was observed that in addition to the positive curvilinear movement, some lateral movement of the belt over the conveying rollers occurred. Due to this, the extracted ribbon discharged inside the machine from the side of the belt and did not come out. For avoiding this phenomenon, four circular guiding racks were attached on both sides of the conveyor rollers.

Performance evaluation

The performance evaluation of the developed machine in reference to three independent parameters, i.e. harvesting stage: (H_s: 90, 105, and 120 days after sowing), plant diameter (D_p:10–15, 15–20, and 20–25 mm), and operational speed of fluted crushing roller (rpm_f :150, 200, and 250 rpm) with three replications was conducted in the actual field condition. After that the response of these parameters on throughput capacity (kg/h), extraction capacity (kg/h), extraction efficiency (%), and ribbon loss (%) was calculated using the equations described by Makanjuola et al. (2019) and statistically analyzed.

(1) $C_T=\frac{W_p}{t}$(1)

(2) $C_E=\frac{W_R}{t}$(2)

(3) ${\eta }_E=\frac{W_R}{W_R+W_r}\times 100$(3)

(4) ${\eta }_R=\frac{W_r}{W_R+W_r}\times 100$(4)

where $C_T$ = throughput capacity, kg/h; $C_E$= extraction capacity, kg/h; ${\eta }_E$= extraction efficiency, %; ${\eta }_R$= Ribbon loss, %; $W_p$ = total weight of plants, kg; $W_R$ = weight of the ribbon extracted, kg; $W_R$ = weight of the ribbon remained with plant/stem, kg; and $t$ = time, h

Quality parameters of jute fiber

After extracting green ribbon, retting was conducted in the artificial concrete-made retting tanks (L × W × H: 3640 × 620 × 660 mm). The ribbon retting was conducted using the plant:water ratio of 1:10 (Banik et al. 2003; Majumdar et al. 2013) and whole jute plant retting (conventional retting process) was conducted using the 1:20 ratio (Majumdar et al. 2013). After the retting and drying process, the quality parameters of fiber were evaluated as per the IS standard IS: 271 (2020).

Statistical optimization

To statistically analyze the performance results of the machine, SAS 9.3 software was used. For this purpose, total 27 numbers of experiments on three independent parameters, i.e. days of harvesting stage (H_s), plant diameter (D_p), and operational speed of fluted crushing roller (rpm_f) with three levels in each parameter category and three replication, were analyzed. The effect of these parameters on throughput capacity, extraction capacity, extraction efficiency, and ribbon loss was analyzed at the p < .01 levels. Finally, the optimization of the parameter was conducted using the design expert-13 software. For this purpose, the goal was set for dependent parameters, i.e. throughput capacity $\left(C_T\right),$ extraction capacity ($C_E$), extraction efficiency (${\eta }_E$), and ribbon losses (${\eta }_R$) as “within range,” “maximum,” “maximum,” and “minimum,” respectively.

Results and discussion

Simulation results

Simulation of fluted crushing roller

The simulated results of the fluted crushing rollers with respect to total deformation and maximum principal elastic strain under 375 N point load conditions are presented in Figure 5. The results reveal that the maximum value of total deformation 9.20 e⁻⁶ m (Figure 5a) was encountered on the fluted crushing rollers. It was found that no significant deformation on the roller occurred, which would cause failure if compared with the yield point of the roller material. The maximum value of principal elastic strain (Figure 5b) was found to be 1.066 e⁻⁵ while the minimum was found to be 1.04 e⁻⁹. Additionally, it was found that the stress values fall within the yield strength of the material. On the basis of the above results, the fluted roller model was fabricated with nylon 66/6 material.

Figure 5. Simulated results of fluted crushing rollers.

Performance evaluation 3.3.1 of the developed ribboner in field condition

The developed machine was tested (Figures 6a and 6b) in actual field conditions to extract the ribbon and inner jute stick without damage (Figure 6c) and various parameters were reported as described below.

Figure 6. Operation of the developed jute ribboner (a) operated by male operator, (b) operated by female operator, and (c) extracted jute ribbon and inner jute sticks.

Throughput capacity

The analysis of variance of throughput capacity is presented in Table 2, while Figure 7a shows the effect of operational parameters on throughput capacity. The results show that the throughput capacity significantly varies with individual and interaction H_s, D_p, and rpm_f at 95% confidence interval. But the overall interaction of these was non-significant. The coefficient of determination (R²) was found as 0.98, and the coefficient of variance (CV) was found as 5.69. Duncan’s multiple range test (DMRT) was also conducted and shows that the days of harvesting stage and plant diameter are comparatively more affecting the throughput capacity than the operational speed of fluted crushing rollers. The throughput capacity was increased with the increase of days of harvesting stage (H_s) due to the increase in the physical growth of the plants with days (Johansen et al. 1985). It was evident that the phenotypic traits change throughout the growth/development period of individual plants (Coleman, McConnaughay, and Ackerly 1994), whereas throughput capacity was increased with the plant diameter due to the increase in the unit mass of the plant biomass. The results were also evident that throughput capacity was also increased with the increase in operational speed of fluted crushing roller due to the increase in the number of fluted rollers strikes and decrease in crushing time. For extracting the ribbon from a jute plant of average 0.225 kg weight, 4000 mm length, and 25 mm diameter at 150, 200, and 250 rpm operational speeds, approximately 2.4 s, 2.2 s, and 2.0 s, respectively, were recorded. In this study, the highest throughput capacity of 234 kg/h was observed at 250 rpm using 120 days of harvesting stage plants of 20–25 mm diameter, whereas the lowest capacity of 85 kg/h was observed at 150 rpm using 90 days of harvesting stage plants of 10–15 mm plant diameter. Similarly, Makanjuola et al. (2019) conducted a study for evaluating the performance of kenaf decorticator. They measured the throughput capacity at three levels of days of harvesting stage (10, 11, and 12 weeks after planting), kenaf stem size (1-5 mm, 5–15 mm, and 15–23 mm), and speed of operation (8, 9 and 10 m/s). In their research findings, they concluded that the throughput capacity was significantly increased with the days of harvesting stages and kenaf stem size. But they did not find a significant effect of speed of operation on throughput capacity.

Figure 7. Performance results of the developed gender-friendly power ribboner.

Table 2. ANOVA of power ribboner throughput capacity.

Source	DF	Type I SS	Mean square	F value	Pr>F
Hs	2	8342.52	4171.26	56.94	<.0001
rpmf	2	2969.85	1484.93	20.27	.0007
Dp	2	30074.30	15037.15	205.26	<.0001
Hs × rpmf	4	568.59	142.15	1.94	.1971
Hs × Dp	4	876.81	219.20	2.99	.0875
rpmf × Dp	4	45.48	11.37	0.16	.9552
Model	18	42877.56	2382.09	32.52	<.0001
Error	8	586.07	73.26
Corrected table	26	8342.52	4171.26

R² = 0.98, C.V. = 5.69, RMSE = 8.55.

where R² = coefficient of determination; C.V. = coefficient of variance; RMSE = root mean square error.

Extraction capacity

The statistical analysis as given in Table 3 shows that the effect of individual and interaction of H_s, D_p, and rpm_f are strongly varies with each other at 1% level of significance, whereas R² and 0.99 and CV 1.81 shows the good uniformity in their data. The results as depicted in Figure 7b show that the extraction capacity was increased with the increase of all the input parameters, i.e. H_s, D_p, and rpm_f. Highest value of extraction capacity as 121 kg/h was obtained at 250 rpm using 120 days of harvesting stage plants of 20–25 mm diameter, whereas minimum value as 32 kg/h was obtained at 150 rpm using 90 days of harvesting stage plants of 10–15 mm diameter. The increment in extraction capacity with the increase in days of harvesting stage and plant diameter was mainly observed due to the increase in ratio of ribbon to stick (R:S) of jute plant. The R:S ratio on weight basis at 90, 105, and 120 days of harvesting stage was found as 24:76, 26:74, and 30:70, respectively, whereas in 10–15, 15–20, and 20–25-mm plant diameter categories it was found as 23:77, 26:74, and 32:68, respectively.

Table 3. ANOVA of power ribboner extraction capacity.

Source	DF	Type I SS	Mean square	F value	Pr>F
Hs	2	4258.67	2129.33	1299.25	<.0001
rpmf	2	374.22	187.11	114.17	<.0001
Dp	2	15448.22	7724.11	4713.02	<.0001
Hs × rpmf	4	3.11	0.78	0.47	.7540
Hs × Dp	4	2444.44	611.11	372.88	<.0001
rpmf × Dp	4	14.89	3.72	2.27	.1503
Model	18	22543.56	1252.42	764.19	<.0001
Error	8	13.11	1.64
Corrected table	26	22556.67

R² = 0.99, C.V. = 1.81, RMSE = 1.28.

During operation of the machine, it was also observed that, due to larger ratio of ribbon in jute plants having diameter in the range of 20–25 mm occupies the more contact area between the fluted crushing rollers, which lead to proper gripping of ribbon between the rollers and turns to the extraction of complete ribbon from plants. Whereas jute plants having diameter in the range of 10–15 mm and 15–20 mm leads to the less contact area and poor gripping between the rollers, this results to the exit of plants with partial extraction of ribbon form the machine and less extraction capacity.

Extraction efficiency

The ANOVA results as presented in Table 4 show a significance effect of individual and interaction of H_s, D_p, and rpm_f at 1% level of significance on the extraction efficiency, whereas R² and CV as 0.99 and 0.29 show the good uniformity in their output. The data presented in Figure 7c show a very close and satisfactory range of extraction efficiency in all the operations. The DMRT test shows that the operational speed of fluted crushing rollers and plant diameter is comparatively more affecting the extraction efficiency than days of harvesting stage. The maximum efficiency 95.5% was achieved at 250 rpm using 120 days of harvesting stage plants of 20–25 mm diameter and minimum efficiency 72% was achieved at 150 rpm using 90 days of harvesting stage plants of 10–15 mm diameter.

Table 4. ANOVA of power ribboner extraction efficiency.

Source	DF	Type I SS	Mean square	F value	Pr>F
Hs	2	6.77	30.38	457.03	<.0001
rpmf	2	19.19	9.60	144.34	<.0001
Dp	2	407.21	203.60	3062.55	<.0001
Hs × rpmf	4	.44	0.11	1.64	.2546
Hs × Dp	4	19.33	4.83	72.69	<.0001
rpmf × Dp	4	2.82	0.70	10.60	.0028
Model	18	509.75	28.32	425.98	<.0001
Error	8	.53	0.07
Corrected table	26	51.28

R² = 0.99, CV = 0.29, RMSE = 0.25.

Ribbon losses

The F value of percentage ribbon loss (%) as given in Table 5 indicates that the effect of maturity days, rotational speed, size of plants, and model was highly significant at 1% level of significance. The interaction of effect of independent parameters was also significant at 1% level of significance. Figure 7d shows that ribbon losses were decreased significantly with the increases of H_s and D_p, and increases with the increase of rpm_f.. For better performance of machine ribbon, the loss should be minimum. In this regard, it was found that the maximum ribbon losses of 20% were found, when the fluted crushing roller of the machine was operated at 250 rpm to process the jute plants of 90 days of harvesting stage and 10–15 mm diameter range while minimum losses of 5.1% were found when the fluted crushing roller was operated at 150 rpm to process the jute plants of 120 days of harvesting stage and 20–25 mm diameter range. The DMRT test results shows operation of power ribboner at 150 and 200 rpm to extract the 120 days of harvesting stage plants of 20–25 mm diameter is suitable in terms of ribbon losses.

Table 5. ANOVA of power ribboner ribbon loss.

Source	DF	Type I SS	Mean square	F value	Pr>F
Hs	2	6.77	30.38	457.03	<.0001
rpmf	2	19.19	9.60	144.34	<.0001
Dp	2	407.21	203.60	3062.55	<.0001
Hs × rpmf	4	.44	0.11	1.64	.2546
Hs × Dp	4	19.33	4.83	72.69	<.0001
rpmf × Dp	4	2.82	0.70	10.60	.0028
Model	18	509.75	28.32	425.98	<.0001
Error	8	.53	0.07
Corrected table	26	51.28

R² = 0.99, CV = 2.48, RMSE = 0.25.

Optimization of days of harvesting stage (Hs), plant diameter (Dp), and operational speed of fluted crushing roller (rpm_f)

To achieve optimized performance of ribboner, operational parameters were optimized by the response surface method. The results of the optimized conditions are shown in Figure 8. The optimized Hs, Dp, and rpm_f were found to be 120 days, 20–25 mm, and 250 rpm, respectively. At the optimized conditions, $C_T$, $C_E$, ${\eta }_E$, and ${\eta }_R$ were obtained as 227 kg/h, 116 kg/h, 92.95%, and 5.3%, respectively, whereas the overall desirability was found to be 0.966. After maintained optimized conditions of ribboner, it was again tested for 1 hand it was found that the $C_T$, $C_E$, ${\eta }_E$, and ${\eta }_R$ were 230 kg/h, 114 kg/h, 92.35%, and 5.7%, respectively. Furthermore, number of plants handled per hour by the operator was also counted and found to be approximately 1500 Nos/h for female operator and 1750 Nos/h for male operator.

Figure 8. Results of optimization of operating parameters.

Fibre quality evaluation

After the extraction of the ribbon, retting was conducted in the artificial retting tank and compared with the conventional retting process as shown in Figure 9a and processed fiber is shown in Figures 9b and 9c. The conducted experiments show that the ribbon retting took the comparatively 8 days less time to ret the jute plants as compared to the traditional retting (control) process. Similar to this observation, Banik et al. (2003) had conducted the experiments and reported that the green ribbon retting reduced the retting time from 4 to 5 days compared to the conventional stem retting. In this study, various quality parameters of the fibers were also assessed and presented in Table 6. The results shows that the bundle strength of ribbon retted fiber had significantly (p < .005) different and approximately 8.37% higher than the conventionally retted fiber. Similar to this study Karim et al. (2021) observed higher tensile strength for ribbon-retted fibers extracted by the extraction machine. The color parameter of the ribbon retted fiber was also approximately 6% higher than the control (Figures 9b and 9c). In line with this result, Banik et al. (2003) observed better color of ribbon-retted fiber than conventional stem-retted fibers. The results also show that the fineness was 11.11% higher and root content was 10% lower than the conventional method. Only for the defects parameter, no significant difference was observed between control and ribbon-retted fibers. The overall quality assessment results reveal that the developed power ribboner is able to produce the approximately one grade higher quality fiber as compared to the conventional retting process. With the developed power ribboner near to TD-3 grade of fiber was produced, whereas with the conventional retting process TD-4 grade of fiber was produced. For rendering the actual price of the agricultural product, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MAFW) has fixed the Minimum Support Price (MSP) every year. For the year of 2022–23, MAFW has fixed the MSP of jute crop according to the grade of fiber as Rs. 5425/quintal for TD-1, Rs. 5225/quintal for TD-2, Rs. 4750/quintal for TD-3, Rs. 4225/quintal for TD-4, and Rs. 4025/quintal for TD-5 (CACP 2021). Thus, with the adaptation of the developed machine, jute farmers can get approximately Rs. 525/quintal or 12% more income than conventional method.

Figure 9. (a) Retting of the jute (b) Fibre extracted using ribbon retting (c) Fibre extracted using conventional retting.

Table 6. Quality parameters of fiber under different retting techniques.

Treatment	Bundle strength (gm/tex)	Colour (whitness, %)	Fineness (tex)	Defects (%)	Root content (%)	Retting duration
Control	18.6 ± 2.3^a	53 ± 0.76^a	2.7 ± 0.67^a	1.5 ± 0.89^a	15 ± 0.38^a	18
Ribbon in tape water alone	20.3 ± 2.1^b	59 ± 1.23^b	2.4 ± 0.92^b	1.5 ± 0.56^a	05 ± 0.42^b	10

(The superscript carrying same letter is not significant at p < .005 in DMRT).

Conclusions

To extract green ribbon without breaking entire stem from jute plants, a gender-friendly power ribboner was designed, developed, and evaluated. For examining the structural strength of the fluted crushing rollers, a static structural analysis feature under the FEM in ANSYS Software was employed. The simulation results reveal that the nylon made fluted crushing rollers will sustain even 10 times of actual load. Thus, the designed roller model fabricated with nylon was adopted in power ribboner. The field performance results showed that the operating parameters, i.e. Hs, Dp, and rpm_f had significantly (P < .01) affected the dependent parameters ($C_T$, $C_E$, ${\eta }_E$, and ${\eta }_R$) at 95% confidence interval. The optimized Hs, Dp, and rpm_f were found to be 120 days, 20–25 mm, and 250 rpm, respectively. At the optimized conditions, $C_T$, $C_E$, ${\eta }_E$, and ${\eta }_R$ were obtained as 227 kg/h, 116 kg/h, 92.95%, and 5.3% with overall desirability of 0.966. The conducted experiments show that the ribbon retting took the comparatively 8 days less time to ret the jute plants as compared to the traditional retting (control) process. Retting of ribbons extracted from the developed ribboner improved the bundle strength by 8.37%, color by 6%, and fineness by 11.11%, whereas reduced the defects by 10%. The overall quality assessment results reveal that the developed power ribboner is able to produce the approximately one grade higher quality fiber as compared to the conventional retting process. Thus, with the adaptation of the developed machine, jute farmers can get approximately Rs. 525/quintal or 12% more income than the conventional method.

Highlights

• Design and simulation of gender-friendly power ribboner for extraction of green ribbon/bast from jute plants using CATIA and ANSYS software.

• Development and performance evaluation of the machine.

• Statistical analysis of the performance and fiber quality evaluation results using SAS 9.3 and Design expert-13 software.

Nomenclature

ASTM	=	American Society for Testing and Materials
CAD	=	Computer-aided design
D	=	Diameter
DMRT	=	Duncan’s Multiple Range Test
H	=	Height
L	=	Length
T	=	Thickness
W	=	Width

Author’s contribution

V. B. Shambhu: supervised and revised as well as edited the manuscript; Prateek Shrivastava: conceptualization, methodology, CAD drawing design, data curation, and writing the original draft, Nageshkumar T: FEA simulation, fiber grading analysis, and review survey; Manisha Jagadale: anthropometric analysis of the design, statistical analysis of data, review and amp; editing; Laxmi Kanta Nayak: revised and edited the manuscript; Dinesh Babu Shakyawar: revised and edited the manuscript.

Consent

I would like to inform you that I took consent from all the authors and the Competent Authority of the institute for submitting the research paper to the journal.

Ethical approval

I would like to inform you that I took approval from the Competent Authority for submitting the research paper to the journal.

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to their parent organization ICAR-NINFET, Kolkata for providing the necessary resources.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).