Design and test on leaf-stripping device of sugarcane harvester by a vertical clamping-conveying channel

Objective  To explore the feasibility of sugarcane vertical clamping-conveying technology for the whole stalk harvester, and provide a technical support for solving the problem of long sugarcane channel and low working efficiency of the existing stalk-type sugarcane combine harvester.

Method  A kind of vertical stripper was designed in a clamping-conveying channel for 4ZZX-48 sugarcane harvester . A harvesting test of this device was conducted in field. The influence factors of leaf stripping effect were analyzed, including the rotation rate of conveyor chain sprocket(n₁), the installation angle of leaf stripping roller(β), the rotation rate of leaf stripping roller(n₂) and sugarcane feeding speed(q)

Result  The values of n₁ and n₂ had significant impact on leaf stripping effect. The ranking of influence was n₁>n₂>q>β. When n₁ was 60 r/min , n₂ was 360 r/min , β was 30° and q was 7.5 kg/s, the machine got the best stripping effect and leaf stripping rate was 76.6%. The results of curve regression analysis showed that there was a quadratic polynomial relation between clearing rate and the ratio of n₂ to n₁. When the value of n₂/n₁ ranged from 5 to 6, clearing rate reached the maximum of around 77%.

Cluclusion  This harvester, based on sugarcane vertical clamping-conveying and stripping technology, is feasible and has certain reference value for research and development of a new whole stalk sugarcane harvester.