Experiments were conducted to study the mechanical detaching of garlic. A 3 horsepower electric motor driven detacher was fabricated at the AEnRI workshop. The machine is scaled down copy from a larger American made garlic detacher. The garlic bulbes fall from the machine hopper on the top of a horizontal conveyor belt moving below the detaching drum, which rotates in opposit direction. The detaching action occured when the lower surface of the bulb moves in a direction and at a speed different from the upper side of the bulb by the action of the frictional forces. The effect of garlic bulb size as well as coefficient of friction of garlic material and belt material was studied. The effect of drum speed (Vd), belt speed (Vb) and drum to belt clearance on the performance of the detacher was also studied. Detaching increased at the lower Vd/Vb. Damage increased with the increase of Vd/Vb and at the smaller clearance between the belt and the drum. Final results showed that maximum detaching performance gave 43% single cloves, 37% double attached cloves and about 5.5% multiple attached cloves were achieved at Vd/Vb ratio of 0.37.
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