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7th IEEE International Conference Humanoid, Nanotechnology, Information Technology

Communication and Control, Environment and Management (HNICEM)

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) – Philippine Section

12-16 November 2014 Hotel Centro, Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines

Design Development and Testing of an Integrated

Bamboo Culm Splitting and Planing Machine

Rey Camillo Banawis

MEM Dept. De La Salle University

Manila, Philippines

Richmond Elbert De Vera


Manila, Philippines

Edwin J. Calilung


Manila, Philippines

Ernest Shawn Quinones


Manila, Philippines

Richard Yao


Manila, Philippines

Abstract — This research paper discusses the design,

development and testing of an integrated splitting and planing

machine for pre-cut bamboo culms. The design of the bamboo

splitting section was based on existing design of commercially

available bamboo splitting machine while the planing section

utilized 2 sets of motor powered portable wood planers

integrated into the design which simultaneously planes the top

and bottom sides of the bamboo strip.

The separation of split bamboo strips and sequential transfer

to the planing section was designed by the authors and consisted

of axial-mounted vanes within a cylindrical pipe that separatethe split bamboo strips and move each strip sequentially to an

exit slide onto a chain feeder to the planing section.

The automation of the process utilized an Arduino Mega

microcontroller board which controlled a stepper motor drive

and relays to control the feeding chain motor to the planing

section.

The testing of the individual processes of bamboo culm splitting

and strip planing were tested satisfactorily, however, the process

of separating the split bamboo strips and sequential feeding to

the planing section infeed chain conveyor require further

improvements as misalignment problems were observed. The

complete process of splitting a 1.2 meter length of bamboo into 8

strips, separation and sequential feeding to the planer and

planing process required around 165 – 170 seconds to complete,

however, the strip transfer process had only a reliability of 80%.

Index Terms —bamboo splitting machine, bamboo strip planing

machine, bamboo strip processing.

I. I NTRODUCTION

The humble bamboo is one of the most versatile and useful

tropical plants with myriad of uses as shown in figure 1. As an

alternative material to wood, however, particularly for

furniture, wood board, floor parquet applications, bamboo has

to be processed to produce uniformly sized strips [1, 2, 4, 7].

These bamboo strips can then be further processed to form the

various finished products such as wood boards, floor tiles,

kitchen chopping boards, table tops and the like [6].

The processing of the bamboo culms into bamboo strips

requires cutting of pre-selected culms into standard lengths,

splitting and planing of four sides of each strip to produce a

uniformly sized and flat strip [5].

Currently, these steps of bamboo strip processing are done

separately and there is interest to develop a machine whichwill integrate at least the bamboo splitting and planing

processes in one machine. The bamboo culm cutting can be

done as a separate step as the cut bamboo has to be pre-sortedinto similar diameter culms in order to come up with similar

width sizes of strips [5].

In particular, the main objectives of this study were to

design, fabricate and test an integrated bamboo splitting and

planing machine which:

• Splits pre-sorted 1.2 meter length bamboo culms into 8strips,

• Feed the split strips sequentially to the planer section,

• Plane the upper and lower sides of the strip into uniform

thickness of from 2-5 mm,

• Complete the process with at least 75% efficiency and

quickest time possible as limited by the slowest processing

step which is the planing process.

978-1-4799-4020-2/14/$31.00 €2014 IEEE

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Fig. 1. Typical uses of bamboo as a plant and as a material. [7]

II.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The conceptual framework for bamboo splitting and

planing machine is given in figure 2 and divided into two parts:

the automated and manual processes. The whole process starts

with placing the bamboo manually into the splitter. An operator

then initiates the process by pressing the power button for the

splitter. After splitting the bamboo into strips, the operator thenretracts the pusher and turns off its power button. The operator

will then switch the power to the stepper motor, strip pusher

and the planer. The stepper motor would then release the

bamboo strips at a set interval so that the strips would not

accumulate at the planer. Each strip that slides down will be

pushed by the strip pusher towards the planer. The planerwould then plane the top and bottom parts of the bamboo strip

which would give us the end product.

Fig. 2. Conceptual framework of the integrated bamboo splitting and planing machine.

III. DESIGN CONCEPT AND IMPLEMENTATION

The design of the bamboo splitting section is based oncommercially available bamboo splitting machine shown in

figure 3. It consists of a linear drive system to push the bamboo

tube through a set of radial blades which splits the bamboo

tube into a number of strips determined by the number of radial blades [1]. CAD software was used to create the mechanical

design which is shown in figure 4. Key design points are theradial blade configuration which consisted of 8 blades set at an

angle of 60 degrees from the horizontal axis and the linear

drive which was sized based on the typical splitting force

requirement of local bamboo as well as data from literature [2,

3].

After the bamboo tube is split into 8 strips, each strip must

be separated and fed sequentially into the planer section. To

accomplish this, a cylindrical strip holder and sequential feeder

system was designed and shown in figure 5.

Fig. 3. Commercially available bamboo splitting machine.

Fig. 4. Mechanical design of the bamboo splitting section.

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This consisted of eight walled partitions attached to a shaft

which separate the bamboo strips after being split from the

previous process. The inside volume of the cylinder is divided

through metal sheets welded to the shaft into eight

compartments, which hold each strip separately and allow

control in feeding it to the next process. An open slot is locatedat the bottom of the outer cylinder which served as the exit

point for each strip as the shaft is rotated by a stepper motor.

The strip will then slide down by gravity onto the chain drivenfeeder to the planer section.

Fig. 5. Mechanical design of the strip holder and feeder.

The planing table is designed to catch the strips from the

inclined slider and feed the strips slowly onto the planing

machine. This is achieved by using a chain drive to push the

strips into the planer. The important component is a strip guide

and holder which holds the strip in place in order to plane the

bamboo smoothly. For this a simple roller mechanism with

spring attached to it was designed to clamp the strips as theyenter the feeding phase as shown in figures 6 to 8.

Fig. 6. Mechanical design of the strip planer and feeder.

Fig. 7. Mechanical design of the strip planer slide and feeder.

As the strips enter the roller mechanism, the spring attached

to the roller compress which in turn clamps the bamboo in place. Two spring loaded roller were used so that when one

rises and drops due to an encounter with the septum the

bamboo strip will not vibrate in result but has the other rollerholding it in place. Support rails were placed on both sides to

keep the bamboo strip in a straight line and prevent it from

going sideways away from the planer and causing undesiredresults like jamming. The actual planing mechanism consists of

two sets of portable wood planers that were retrofitted into the

machine. Future improvements can incorporate specially

designed planing mechanism for this machine.

Fig. 8. Design of the spring-loaded roller clamp.

IV. TESTS CONDUCTED AND MAIN R ESULTS

The individual processes of splitting, strip separation and

positioning on the feeder and planing were tested separately in

order to determine consistency in performance. Four

experiments were conducted as follows:

Experiment 1: Bamboo splitting consistency test

Experiment 2: Bamboo strip orientation and position

Experiment 3: Bamboo planing consistency test

Experiment 4: Planing speed test

A total of 5 trials were made for each experiment which is

the minimum number in order to get 90% confidence level on

the results. Following is a discussion of main results.

A. Experiment #1 Results

Bamboo culms with allowable diameter and thickness are

fed into the splitting machine which splits the bamboo culm

into eight equal strips. Proper set-up and selection of bamboo

will prevent problems with misalignment of the bamboo culm

and the center of the blades, cracks in the bamboo culms after

processing, and jamming of the bamboo strips with the rotating

divider. The measurement of the bamboo strips is directly

related to the diameter of the fed bamboo culm. Larger bamboo

culms will produce wider bamboo strips. Splitting consistency

of the machine refers to the capacity of the machine to produce bamboo strips without any of the cited problems. After the

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splitting process, bamboo strips must be aligned with the

rotating divider in order to achieve proper position and

orientation of the strips.

TABLE I. R ESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 1: SPLITTING CONSISTENCY

Trial

no.Evaluation

Test result Reason for Failure

1 Passed

2 Passed

3 Passed

4 Passed

5 Passed

Success Rate: 100%

The test results showed 100 percent success rate when the bamboo tubes are presorted for uniform sizing and condition.

B. Experiment # 2 Results

Bamboo strips that slide down from the rotating strip holder

occasionally fall misaligned with the planing machine which

yields poor planing quality. Misalignment of the bamboo strips

may also cause the planer to jam if not fixed immediately. The

purpose of this experiment is to determine the capability of the

machine to align the bamboo strips before they are fed into the

planing machine. Newly split bamboo strips are also positioned

skin side down before they are fed into the planing machine in

order to avoid misalignment caused by the septum inside

bamboo culms. Septum inside bamboo culms are naturally

thick that’s why considerations are made in order to plane

bamboo culms evenly [3].

TABLE II. R ESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 2: STRIP ORIENTATION AND

POSITIONING CONSISTENCY

Trial

no.Evaluation


1 Passed

2 Failed Misalignment

3 Passed

4 Passed

5 Passed

Success Rate: 80%

As shown by the results given in Table 2, misalignment of

the strip as it falls from rotary strip holder is a real problem and

must be addressed in the succeeding research work on this

machine.

C. Experiment # 3 Results

The bamboo planing process involves removal of septum,

thickness reduction and flattening of bamboo strips. The final

output of planing consistency tests refers to the capacity of the

planing machine to produce bamboo strips with thickness of 2-

5mm. The thickness range of the final output is observed inorder to align the final output with possible uses for the

bamboo strips.

Results showed a more or less uniform thickness in the

processed strips of from 3-4 mm with average of 3.6 mm

which is within the range set forth.

TABLE III. R ESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 3: PLANING CONSISTENCY

Trial

no.Evaluation


1 Passed2 Passed

3 Passed

4 Passed

5 Passed

Success Rate: 100%

D. Experiment # 4 Results

The integration of several processes made the planing

process the bottleneck in the whole operation which makes it

crucial to hasten this process to increase speed and productivity. The goal in this experiment is to determine the

capability of the planing process of the machine to plane one

bamboo strip every 20 seconds.

TABLE IV. R ESULTS OF EXPERIMENT 1: SPLITTING CONSISTENCY

Trial

no.Process Duration (sec.)

1 21

2 18

3 21

4 19

5 18

Average: 19 sec.

As shown in Table 4 the planing speed falls within the

target speed of 20 seconds of planing duration per strip.

E. Summary of Performance Tests

Based on the four experiments conducted, the main

bottleneck in terms of process time is the planing operationwhich took close to 20 seconds to process a single strip which

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means that for 8 strips (from one bamboo tube) it will take at

least 160 seconds or almost 3 minutes which is not really

satisfactory. It is suggested that the planing process for the 8

strips be conducted simultaneously which will require a wider

width of cut for the planing machine.

Another area of improvement is the rotary strip holder andfeeder which is a bit prone to misalignment of the strip.

However, this problem will no longer be relevant once the

machine is modified for simultaneous planing of all the stripsfrom one bamboo tube as it will involve an entirely different

design.

The problem in the feeding of the strips also prevented thereliable running of the machine for the complete processing of

the bamboo tube, and thus is very important to address in

future work.

V. CONCLUSIONS AND R ECOMMENDATIONS

This study was able to demonstrate that the processing of

bamboo tubes to planed strips can be integrated in one machinealthough the particular integrated design developed, fabricated

and tested by the researchers resulted in a significant bottleneck which limited the throughput – the planing process

which required at least 20 seconds per strip or 160 seconds per

bamboo tube.

Four tests or experiments were done to evaluate the

performance for each step and also to determine the speed of

the planing process. The tests were mostly successful except

for the misalignment problem in the strip holder and feeding

system to the planer. This problem is significant as it stops the

continuous operation of the machine.

Based on these conclusions the following are the main

recommendations for future study:

• There is scope for optimizing the blade design and

configuration in order to reduce power requirement

and the effect of non-uniformities in the bamboo being

split,

• The planing section must be able to accommodate all

the strips produced after each splitting cycle – which

means that a new strip catcher and feeder design is

needed as well as new planer with wider effective

width of cut must be designed,

• Once the planing can be done simultaneously for all

strips from the splitter, then next area to be looked at is

how to reduce further the planing process by

optimizing the planer mechanism and blades,

• The design of the transfer, orientation and feeding of

the strips from the splitter to the plane is also critical asit can result to jams, mis-alignment and mis-orientation

problems that will affect the throughput and quality of

output.

R EFERENCES

[1] P. Wan-xi, Z. Xu, Z. Zhong-feng, et al., “Research on

development model and countermeasure of bamboo industry inChina on International Economic Crisis,” 2009 InternationalConference on Electronic Commerce and Business Intelligence,

[On-line], pp. 328-331, June 2009.

[2]

E. Rottke, “Bamboo as a building material,” Internet:http://bambus.rwthaachen. de/eng/1-building-material.pdf, [July25, 2014].

[3]

X. Li, "Physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of

bamboo and its utilization potential for fiberboardmanufacturing," PhD diss., Beijing Forestry University, Beijing,

2004.

[4]

C. Marquez, "Improving and maintaining productivity of

Bambusa blumeana for quality shoots and timber in Iloilo andCapiz, the Philippines," Silvicultural management of bamboo inthe Philippines and Australia for shoots and timber, ACIAR

Proceedings. [On-line], 129, 2009, pp.46-60.

[5]

R. Araral, "FPRDI bamboo flattening machine shows promise,"

Internet:http://fprdi.dost.gov.ph/index.php?option=com_content

&task=view&id=567, Sept. 28, 2011.

[6] M. Alipon, "Development of glue-laminated bamboo and

bamboo-wood combination for structural uses," Internet:http://fprdi.dost.gov.ph/index.php?option=content&task=view&i

d=237, Nov. 02, 2008.

[7] F. Virtucio, “General overview of bamboo in the Philippines,”Silvicultural management of bamboo in the Philippines and

Australia for shoots and timber. ACIAR Proceedings, pp. 18-23.

Available:http://aciar.gov.au/files/node/10532/PR129%20Part%203.

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