Sri Lanka has the fourth largest coconut export market in the world. Desiccated coconut, brown fiber, virgin coconut oil, and coconut water are some popular exports among number of export products. Coconut testa should be peeled off in most of the coconut product manufacturing processes. Although testa peeling is common for a many coconut products, manual peeling method is still used in Sri Lankan manufacturing industry. Freezing, boiling, baking, and specialized machines are different methods that can be used except manual peeling. In this research the best mechanism for testa peeling to replace manual peeling is identified and the identified process is optimized by conducting number of experimental runs. Automation the manual peeling mechanism has been identified the well suited solution for the current requirements in the Sri Lankan coconut manufacturing industry. A Prototype was fabricated and experiments were conducted to identify the best parameter settings for coconut testa peeling. The effect of Grater thickness, Contact angle and Grater rotational speed were considered and the thickness of the peeled testa were observed as the output parameter. Full Factorial Design of Experiment (DOE) was conducted by changing parameters in different levels. Grater thickness and Contact angle show significant impact on the thickness of testa while grater rotational speed does not show a significant impact at 5 % significance level. Thickness of the testa can be optimized by setting Contact angle in high level and Grater thickness in the lower level.

Keywords : Coconut Manufacturing Industry; Testa peeling; Design of Experiments