Abstract
To address the problems of high damage rate, low seeding accuracy, and poor seeding generally in the seeding process, a general-purpose seeding device was designed in this study based on the principle of mechanical pneumatic combined seeding. The air-blowing-type cleaning and seed unloading of the device laid the conditions for precise seeding and flexible seeding. In addition, single-factor experiments were performed on seeds (e.g., soybeans, corn, and rape-seeds) with different particle sizes and shapes to verify the general properties of the seed metering device. A multi-factor response surface optimization experiment was performed by applying soybean seeds as the test object to achieve the optimal performance parameters of the seed metering device. At a seed-clearing air velocity of 16.7 m/s, a seed feeding drum speed of 13.7 r/min, and a hole cone angle of 35.6°, corresponding to the optimal performance index, the qualified index, the replay index, and the missed index reached 97.94%, 0.03%, and 2.03%, respectively. The verification test results are consistent with the optimized ones. As indicated from the results, the seed metering device exhibits good general properties, low damage rate, great precision, and high efficiency; it is capable of meeting general seeding operations of different crop seeds and technically supporting for the reliability and versatility of the seeder.
Highlights
The seed metering device is the core component of the seeder, which is closely related to the working performance of the seeder [1,2,3,4]
The air velocity of the seed cleaning for the soybean and corn seeding was set to 18 m/s, the air velocity of unloading was set to 15 m/s, the cone angle of the hole was 35◦, and the rotation speed of the feeding drum was set to 35 r/min, 30 r/min, 25 r/min, 20 r/min, 15 r/min, 10 r/min, and 5 r/min for the test, respectively; the rapeseed cleaning air velocity was set to 6 m/s, and the unloading air velocity was set to 9 m/s for the test
Because the good general of the metering device has been verified in single factor test, one of the crop seeds was selected to carry out multi factor test, explore the effect of the interaction of various factors on the performance of the seed metering device, the seed cleaning air velocity X1, the seed feeding drum speed X2, and the hole cone angle X3 acted as the test factors, and the Design-Expert8.0.6 software was used to develop the response surface CCD (Central Composite Design) test
Summary
The seed metering device is the core component of the seeder, which is closely related to the working performance of the seeder [1,2,3,4]. Singh et al [12] examined the performance exhibited by the seed-metering device of a pneumatic planter under laboratory and field conditions to optimize the structure and operating parameters for cottonseed planting. Arzu et al [15] assessed the performances of vacuum plates with different numbers of holes in laboratory conditions by employing sticky belt tests They measured seed spacing values with a computerized measurement system (CMS) in terms of cotton and corn seeds. Gao et al [16] developed a unique pneumatic cylinder-type precision metering device to satisfy the precision seeding requirements of the notoginseng planting In such a device, features of vacuum suction, insulated pressure for seed-cleaning, and zero speed of seed dropping were incorporated.
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