Design and optimization of a tea vibrating-shifting machinery

ABSTRACT Tea screening is a key process in the tea refining and processing industry. However, the tea shakers which are key components in tea screening have low screening efficiencies, and there is a lack of research on the optimization of key factors affecting the same. In this study, a tea vibrating-shifting machine driven by an eccentric wheel-linkage was designed. The force and motion process of tea particles were theoretically analyzed, and the dynamic equation of the tea particles was deduced. For improving the screening efficiency of the tea vibrating-shifting machine, the experimental prototype was optimized with the screening efficiency as the objective function. Additionally, a quadratic orthogonal test of response surface was established using a commercial software. The analysis of variance indicated the following parameters affecting the screening efficiency in decreasing order of influence: vibration direction angle, eccentric wheel angular velocity, and sieve mesh inclination angle. As per the optimization results of regression equation, for a vibration direction angle of 21.68°, the sieve mesh inclination angle was 2.95°, the eccentric wheel angular velocity was 25.24 rad/s, and the maximum screening efficiency was 86.24%.