Design and Development of Walking-type Power-operated Pneumatic Cotton Picker

Abstract

Cotton verities do not mature at a particular time under Indian climatic conditions, for which mechanisation of cotton-picking operations is still a major problem. Development of mechanical device for selective picking of cotton is thus necessary. A walking-type power-operated pneumatic cotton picker was designed based on suction mechanism. The conceptual design of the cotton picker with major components viz., prime mover, trolley frame, aspirator, cotton collection drum, and suction pipe with picking spout was done using Pro-E wildfire 2.0 software. Field evaluation was done with 3 levels of picking spout diameter (30, 40, 50 mm) and 4 levels of aspirator speed (3000, 4000, 5000, 6000 rpm). The maximum air velocity, suction pressure, picking capacity, and picking efficiency were 13.97 m.s-1, 0.049 kg.cm-2, 9.23 kg.h-1, and 95.73%, respectively. Minimum fuel consumption of 1.35 l.h-1 was observed at aspirator speed of 3,000 rpm, and the lowest harvesting loss of 6.51% was observed with a combination of 30 mm × 6000 rpm. The savings in cost and time compared to the traditional manual method of cotton picking were 52.77% and 60%, respectively.