Design and development of a mechatronic intelligent pistachio splitter

This paper describes the design and development of an intelligent pistachio splitter. The jaws of this machine apply force to the closed shell pistachio until it opens. The moment that the closed shell pistachio opens is sensed and right after, the forcing is stopped which prevents the nut from braking into pieces. In order to evaluate the performance of the machine, the varieties of 35 closed shell pistachios were tested. The results show that the machine splits 92.2% of the shells exactly from the suture line where it opens naturally on the tree. The average time to split each pistachio is 9.3 s. The capacity of the machine can be improved by increasing the jaw’s speed or using parallel splitting units.

► Design and development of a mechatronic intelligent pistachio splitter. ► Mechanization of closed shell pistachio splitting process. ► Improving the speed and hygienic conditions of post harvest processing of closed shell pistachios.