Agriculture (Feb 2023)
Evaluation of Comparative Field Studies for Root and Onion Harvester with Variable Angle Conveyor
Abstract
The long-term storage of vegetable crops and potatoes in storage, even with a small content of soil and plant impurities in the heap, does not ensure the preservation of the required quality indicators of marketable products. The lack of modern technological foundations for improving the design parameters of machines for harvesting vegetables and potatoes leads to the impossibility of eliminating the loss of root crops, their damage, as well as the high-quality process of cleaning from impurities. This circumstance is due to the fact that modern technologies and technical means of harvesting root crops and onions are not able to provide high-quality marketable products with minimal labor costs. In this regard, a modern separating system of the harvesting machine has been developed, which ensures the variation of technological parameters under changing conditions for the harvesting of root crops and onions. The experimental studies of the developed harvester with an experimental separating system made it possible to ensure the high-quality harvesting of potato and onion tubers with the following parameter values: a completeness of separation of more than 98% and a damage to products up to 1.7%, at a speed of movement of 1.7 m/s for the separating system; a completeness of separation of more than 98% and a product damage of up to 1.1% at a speed of up to 1.0 m/s for the harvester; and a separation completeness of more than 98% and a product damage of up to 1.4% at a commercial product extraction depth of 0.02 m. The results of comparative studies on the quality indicators of the machine for harvesting root crops in the harvesting of potato and onion tubers are presented, indicating the prevailing values of the quality indicators of work in the harvesting of potatoes, depending on the change in the regime indicators of the quality of work.
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