Numerical Simulation and Experiment of Dust Suppression Device of Peanut Whole-Feed Combine Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

Peanut whole-feed combines discharge a large amount of dust while harvesting, causing serious air pollution and detrimental environmental change. To reduce the dust emission from peanut whole-feed combines, a cyclone separation dust suppression device for peanut whole-feed combines was proposed in this study. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model coupled with dust particles and dust emission airflow was established to simulate the effect of a dust suppression device on capturing dust particles. Then, the effectiveness of the dust suppression device was verified by a dust suppression test system on a peanut whole-feed combine. The results show that when the inlet wind velocity of the dust suppression device increased from 15 m/s to 25 m/s, the separation efficiency of the measured value fluctuated between 90.79% and 96.07%, while the simulated value fluctuated between 95.18% and 96.59%. Moreover, the particle size of the discharged dust particles was significantly reduced under the action of the dust suppression device. The discharged dust particle size constant of the measured value was 8.6 μm, while the simulated value was 5.1 μm. The study methods and results can provide a reference for the dust suppression optimization of peanut whole-feed combines and similar agricultural machines.