Abstract
Aim of study: This paper presents a mathematical modeling approach to redesign the reels of chickpea harvesters for harvest efficiency.Area of study: A prototype chickpea harvester was designed and evaluated on the Dooshan farm of the University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran.Material and methods: The strategy used for reducing harvesting losses derived from the dynamic study of the reel applied to the chickpea harvester. The machine was designed such that bats of a power take-off (PTO)-powered reel, in conjunction with passive fingers, harvest pods from anchored plants and throw the pods into a hopper. The trochoid trajectory of the reel bats concerning reel kinematic index, and plant height and spacing was determined for redesigning the reel.Main results: This kinematic design allowed an estimation of the reel orientation at the time of impact. The experimentally validated model offers an accurate and low computational cost method to redesign harvester reels.Research highlights: The new chickpea harvester implemented with a four fixed-bat reel, a height of 40 cm above the ground for the reel axis, and featuring a kinematic index of 2.4 was capable of harvesting pods with harvesting efficiency of over 70%; a significant improvement in harvesting performance.
Highlights
The nutritional value of legumes was recognized by the 68th general assembly of the United Nations in declaring 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (FAO, 2016)
The arrows in the curve indicate the direction of the moving pods after being hit by reel bats
Following the successful prototyping of a chickpea harvester by Golpira (2013) and Golpira et al (2013), this paper aims to derive an experimentally validated model for reel design
Summary
The nutritional value of legumes was recognized by the 68th general assembly of the United Nations in declaring 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (FAO, 2016). Pakistan, and Iran are the largest producers with over 70 %, 10 %, and 5 % of total world production, respectively (UCDavice, 2014; Muehlbauer et al, 2017). 2019), and efficient harvesting machinery (Dhimate et al, 2018; Singh et al, 2018) would greatly benefit rural chickpea growers who account for almost 50 % of the total production costs for hand harvesting (Haddad et al, 1988). Hand laborers collect the entire chickpea bush into central heaps for transport to a stationary thresher got grain separation (Paulsen et al, 2015). Harvesting the entire plants including roots takes 6 to 8 man-days to harvest 1 ha (Golpira et al, 2013). Losses can range from 4 % to 15 % (Haddad et al, 1988). Uprooting the bushes removes the nitrogen-fixing bacteria nodules, increases soil erosion, and decreases the following wheat rotation yield
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