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AGRICULTURE, FOOD & BEVERAGES
Additive Manufacturing Hub case study: AGCOM AGCOM made use of 3D printing in the development of a prototype mobile processing machine for hemp crops, with assistance from AMTIL’s Additive Manufacturing Hub. The hemp industry is worth more than US$3bn globally, and is expected to grow significantly over the coming years. The cultivation of industrial hemp was only legalised in Australia in 2017, and as a result our development of locally produced hemp fibre, seed, and oil-based products for global markets lags the rest of the world. Currently, the major constraint to market development in the Australian hemp industry is the lack of hemp processing facilities. AGCOM was established in 2006 as an agricultural business. Over the years, AGCOM has been involved in the engineering, design and development of machinery for the primary industry sector. Within the hemp industry, AMCO has accumulated a solid base of technical knowledge and expertise in processing equipment, built up over many years through collaboration with partners from Canada, America, and Australia. This knowledge has now been transferred to an engineering design for the development of a prototype mobile hemp processing machine (decorticator). The decortication process efficiently separates the short, woody interior fibres from the soft, long outer fibres of the hemp plant, each of which are used in the manufacture of a diverse range of industrial and consumer products.
The challenge The project involved the design and development of a mobile hemp decorticator for transportation to and on-farm use within cropping regions around south-eastern Australia. The equipment’s mobility will enable the stalks of freshly harvested hemp crops to be separated into their long and short fibres and processed on-farm. The final system will be mounted onto a specialised trailer which can be moved from paddock to paddock and site to site. A key feature of this versatile system is its non-reliance on mains power, which will avoid the double handling of the crop and the costs of its cartage to a processing facility, which, depending on the location, could be several hundred kilometres away. As the decorticator is connected to its own power supply, harvested hemp stalks can be processed in paddocks on farms with no access to electricity. Bypassing the double handling and transport of unprocessed hemp stalks also means that the long and short fibres separated by decortication can be shipped directly to businesses for manufacture into end-user products across multiple industries, including motor vehicle fit-out and in building and construction. Most decorticators currently available can only process hemp stalks that have been pre-softened by retting. This is a naturally occurring microbial process that facilitates the separation of the long and short fibres when the harvested material is left in the paddock to partially decompose for several weeks prior to decortication. Retting greatly increases the time lag between harvesting and decortication, decreasing the value of the final product.
3D modelling of the conveyor
AMT DEC 2021
3D modelling of the three-rotor hemp crushing processor.
The project has been divided into three stages due to its size: feasibility; engineering design; and manufacturing. It is now in the second and most critical phase of design, with the aim of achieving a fully manufacturable system that can be commercialised. A major constraint that AGMCOM faced was ensuring the final product was manufactured cost-effectively and identifying any needed adjustments and alterations to the design before fabrication. The initial concept engineering design has been developed and requires final adjustments to achieve the project’s objectives. The objective is to optimise the design by identifying any adverse product processing issues that could hinder the achievement of a high-performance system. The final design goal is the development of a cost-efficient processing system capable of extracting and separating long and short fibres from hemp stalks ready for use in various industrial and domestic applications. The decorticator will be mounted on a truck and trailer combination, in compliance with national road dimension standards, enabling its transportation predominantly around south-eastern Australia. It is therefore essential that during the design phase the decorticator is created in accordance with these standards, which is why the 3D modelling and printing is such an important element in this process.
The solution The major obstacle AGCOM needed to solve was ensuring there was space to enable the mobile machinery to process the material adequately. By 3D printing scale models of all the components, it
