Design and Construction of a compressive force measuring device for oil expression

Abstract

This paper describes the design and construction of a device for measuring compressive force during oil expression from oil bearing seeds or nuts. The device consist of a 10 tons load cell and an amplifier with display unit. The device was calibrated and tested. The result obtained from the test shows that the device is adequate for measuring dead load and compressive force, ranging from 0-100kN in a situation where a percentage error of up to 0.2% is permissible. In addition, test result of oil yield obtained by using the device to measure compressive force during oil expression from grounded Palm Kernel was compared to the result of oil yield measured using the Universal Testing Machine (UTM) of 50KN capacity. The results were subjected to a statistical analysis using T-test. The comparative analysis of the two independent results confirmed that there is no significant difference between the two devices at 5% level of confidence (P>.05).