A Variable Deformation Macadamia Nut Cracker
ABSTRACT EXPERIMENTS were conducted to study the principle of cracking in-shell macadamia nuts for kernel ex-traction by compression. The stress distribution was ex-amined before and after initial cracks developed on shell. The manner of applying compression was found to be important in the development of initial cracks which strongly influenced whether kernels and shells could be completely separated eventually. For optimal kernel ex-traction, the magnitude of deformation applied to each nut was dependent on its size. An economical means was developed to deliver the appropriate compression to nuts.