Authors

Abstract

To address the problems of low manual pickup efficiency and severe soil accumulation in existing shovel-type pickup devices used for segmented potato harvesting, a composite pickup device consisting of a grid-type segmented pickup shovel and a flexible lifting wheel was designed. A potato-soil-machine discrete element simulation model was established using EDEM to optimize structural parameters, including grid spacing, and to investigate the effects of operating parameters, including forward speed, digging depth, and lifting-wheel speed, on pickup performance. The simulation results showed that grid spacing was negatively correlated with the loss rate and positively correlated with the damage rate. An optimized grid spacing of 25 mm reduced the damage rate to 2.21% and the loss rate to 3.70%, while effectively reducing potato jamming. As the forward speed and lifting-wheel speed increased, the loss rate decreased, whereas the damage rate increased. Digging depth had a nonlinear effect on the loss rate, which initially decreased and then increased, reaching its minimum at a digging depth of 100 mm, whereas the damage rate continuously decreased with increasing digging depth. Field tests yielded an average loss rate of 3.88% and an average damage rate of 2.24%, meeting the operational requirements for potato harvesting.

Abstract in Chinese

针对马铃薯分段收获中人工捡拾效率低和现有铲式捡拾装置易壅土的问题，设计了一种由栅栏分段式捡拾铲与柔性拨薯轮组成的复合式捡拾装置。基于EDEM软件建立了薯-土-机离散元仿真模型,优化栅栏间距等结构参数并探究了前进速度、入土深度和拨薯轮转速等作业参数对捡拾性能的影响。仿真结果表明：栅栏间距与损失率负相关，与伤薯率正相关；优化后的25 mm栅栏间距使伤薯率降至2.21%，损失率为3.70%，显著减少了薯块卡滞现象；前进速度和拨薯轮转速增加时，损失率下降而伤薯率上升，入土深度对损失率呈先降后升的非线性影响，100 mm时最优，对伤薯率则持续降低。田间试验平均损失率为3.88%，伤薯率为2.24%，满足马铃薯收获作业要求。