Banana-pseudostem shredding machine

Cameroon is a leading banana producer, yet the fibrous pseudostem left after harvest is routinely burned or dumped — lost biomass and needless waste. The shredding equipment on offer is either imported at high cost or built for conditions that don't match local realities. What was needed was a machine designed from the ground up to be built with locally available materials and tooling.

I supervised the project alongside Dr. Betene Achille at the University of Douala, guiding students from constraint analysis to prototype. We chose a mono-disc, belt-driven architecture for simplified construction, flexible power transmission, a compact footprint and low maintenance, then sized it rigorously — shaft dimensioning, blade geometry, bearing selection and frame rigidity — to handle real pseudostem.

The machine was validated in laboratory trials that confirmed its shredding effectiveness on actual pseudostem, and fully documented — bill of materials, A2 drawings and kinematic scheme — for local manufacture and replication. It proved that high-impact agricultural machinery doesn't need industrial tools or imported parts, only rigorous engineering applied to accessible means.