Abstract

In process industries, all processes involve the reduction of size of materials are needed. By
doing so, it increase the reactivity of solids, permits separation of unwanted ingredients by
mechanical methods and reduces the bulk of fibrous materials for easier handling. They are
four methods commonly used in size reduction machines that are compression, impact,
attrition or rubbing, and cutting.

Introduction
In this experiment, Hammer mills are used to crush, cut or broken solids into smaller pieces.
The products from this type of this grinder are usually reduced to powder form. Hammer mills
contain a high-speed motor turning inside a cylindrical casing. Feed dropped into the top of
the casing is broken and falls out through a bottom opening. The solids are broken by sets of
swing hammers pinned to a rotor disk. The capacity and power requirement of a hammer mill
vary greatly with the nature of the feed and cannot be estimated with the confidence from
theoretical considerations.

Objectives
The aim of the experiment is to study the operation of hammer mills and to calculate the
percentage production of crushing nuts.

Materials/Apparatus

Hammer mills
Beaker
Ground nuts

Procedure
1. 200 grams of ground nuts are weighed.
2. The mass of beaker use to collect the products was recorded.
3. The hammer mill and perforated metal screens was cleaned before doing the
4.
5.
6.
7.

process.
The ground nuts were poured into the grinding chamber.
The power generator was turned on.
After two minutes, the product was collected.
Before weighing the products, all the crushed nuts left inside the grinding chamber

was collected as well.

8. The product was weighed.
9. All the readings are recorded in a table.

Results
Mass of nut before the experiment: 200.00 grams
Size of metal screen

Small

Medium

Large

Weight of beaker (final)

428.38 g

469.82 g

501.88 g

328.88 g

328.78 g

347.26 g

99.50 g

141.04 g

154.62 g

Weight of beaker
(initial)
Mass of nuts

Mass production of nuts by using different types of metal screen

250

200
Small

150

Mass of ground nuts

Medium
Large

100

50

0
Initial

Final

Calculation
Percentage production of ground nuts by using different types of metal screen:
A. Small screen

Wei ght of product

10 0
Weight of original nuts
99.50 g
100=49.75
200.00 g

B. Medium screen

Wei ght of product

10 0
Weight of original nuts
141.04 g
10 0=70.52
200.00 g

C. Large screen

Wei ght of product

10 0
Weight of original nuts
154.62 g
10 0=77.31
200.00 g

Discussion
The small metal screen has the least mass production where as the large metal screen has
the highest mass production between the three of the metal screens. This may be due to the
size of the nuts after being grinded by the hammer mills. The bigger the size of particles, the
higher the mass of particles. When large metal screen was used, it reduced the size of the
nuts but not into fine powder. When the smaller metal screen was used, it reduced the size of
the nuts into powder. From the graph, the percentage of production by using small metal
screen is the lowest but the product is the fine product. The percentage of production by
using large metal screen is the highest but the product is not really fine or not in powder form
compared to the product by using small metal screen.

Conclusion
The operation of hammer mills was studied and the percentage production of crushing by
using different types of metal screens was obtained. It is recommended that by using
different types screen size, shaft speed or hammer configuration can alter the size of the
product that we wanted.

References
1. Unit Operation 2, CMT203 by Azmi Mahmood and Mohamad Nizar Hassan, Module 3