This paper describes a new drum-type fruit-vegetable washer, which is created on the basis of manual vegetable washing method. The main driving part of the washer is a crank mechanism with springs. The main drive design process is proposed to be carried out in two stages: dynamic research and strength analysis. The results of dynamic research show the effect of spring stiffness on reducing dynamic reactions in the crank mechanism as well as the required engine power, in other words, on reducing washer vibration and energy consumption. Stress analysis was performed using the finite element software package ABAQUS. The design process allows selecting a set of acceptable parameters for the main drive of the washer. This result is used to create a prototype of an innovative fruit-vegetable washer.

The purpose of the study was to develop a mathematical model of a flat composite spring operating in the region of small displacements and having a shape memory effect. To describe the behavior of the material, we applied a phenomenological approach based on the phase transition diagram; as the material model, we chose the Brinson phenomenological model. As a result, we proposed relationships for determining the reduced mechanical characteristics of a monolayer equivalent to a composite layer in the spring. The memory effect was taken into account by an additional internal force factor, i. e. the shape memory moment during bending, which resulted from the cross-section orientation of the martensite. To obtain the elastic characteristic of the spring, we used a finite element approach, in which the shape memory moment acts as an additional nodal load. Eventually, we introduced an algorithm for the dependence between the bending moment in the section and the shape memory moment for isothermal loading in the martensite stability zone and obtained the dependences of the shape memory moment during bending on the bending moment for various configurations of the cross-section of the spring.