Design and Modeling of Cereal Crop Reaper Machine

Abstract

Harvesting by using traditional method is time consuming; it needs much labor force and result in much grain loss. For developing nations like Ethiopia, importing combine harvester is too expensive and not affordable for small scale farmers. The aim of this project was to design and model cereal crop reaper machine that is easily available and operated by small scale farm holders. The designed reaper was manually guided and powered with diesel engine for cutting cereal crop stems. With the help of pulley-belt arrangement, drive power is transmitted from engine to gear mounted shafts. A bevel gear arrangement is used to transmit motion at certain angle. One end of bevel gear shaft was connected to slider crank mechanism which converts rotary motion of shaft into reciprocating motion of cutter bar. Reciprocating cutter bar slides over fixed bar and created scissoring action between cutter blades which are responsible for cutting the crop stems. Integrating mechanism consist of flat belt with collecting lugged plates bolted on it. This machine can give a cost saving of 99.89 USD/hectare. This means one farmer can save 99.89 USD/hectare compared to manual harvesting machine.