DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE COMB-TYPE HARVESTING TEST BENCH FOR CERASUS HUMILIS

Abstract

A comb-type harvesting test bench was designed to address low fruit collection rate and theoretical analysis and simulation analysis of the harvesting process were carried out in this work. Single factor simulation experiment and bench experiment were carried out, and fruit collection rate was used as the evaluation index. The motor speed, bending angle of comb teeth and radial diameter of comb teeth arrangement were selected as the experimental factors. Results showed that the collection rate decreased with the increase of motor speed; and increased with the increase of the bending angle of comb teeth or the radial diameter of comb teeth arrangement. The orthogonal experiment of three-factor and three-level quadratic rotation centre combination was performed. The results showed that motor speed had the largest effect on collection rate, followed by radial diameter of comb teeth arrangement and bending angle of comb teeth. The optimal parameter combination was predicted by the response surface model as follows: motor speed of 25 r/min, bending angle of comb teeth of 120°, radial diameter of comb teeth arrangement of 868.45 mm and correspondingly the collection rate reached 91.51%. Based on actual harvesting efficiency and the machining problems of the test bench, the bench experiment was performed with the motor speed of 25 r/min, the bending angle of comb teeth of 120°, the radial diameter of comb teeth arrangement of 900 mm, and the collection rate was 93.82%. The relative error with the predicted optimal result was 2.48%, achieving the purpose of improving the collection rate.