Improving the Reliability of the Scraper-Bunker Peat Harvester

Abstract

Cases of failures of peat scraper-bunker harvesting machines are analyzed. It has been proven, that the main cause of failures is the stumpiness of the peat deposit. When interacting with the stump, there is a sharp increase in the load on all elements of the transmission of the machine, which leads to their temporary exit from the working state. The first element, that the stump encounters is the machine's elevator bucket. As a result of interaction, the bucket gets damaged in the form of ruptures, incipient and developed cracks. Proposals are formulated to increase the reliability of the scraperbunker peat harvester by installing a simple tracking device at work of the bucket elevator and improving the design of the elevator bucket itself. It is noted, that due to the initiation and development of cracks in the zone of welded seams, buckets must be subjected to flaw detection at least once a year, during pre-season maintenance.