Design and Experiment of a Soybean Shaftless Spiral Seed Discharge and Seed Delivery Device

Abstract

In response to the problem of poor flatness caused by straw and root stubble on the no-till surface during the operation of the driven stubble-breaking and anti-blocking no-till planter, poor performance of seed discharge by the seed rower and seed guide operation by the seed guide tube and the overall vibration of the tool during the stubble-breaking and anti-blocking operation in the southwest, a soybean shaftless spiral seed discharge and seed delivery device was designed based on the principle of screw conveying. The optimum seed filling size and speed range of the spiral blade was obtained by analyzing size, force and motion of soybean seeds of "ZhongHuang 37". The quadratic regression orthogonal rotation test and response surface method were used to analyze the operating parameters of the shaftless spiral seed discharge and seed delivery device by joint EDEM(Discrete Element Method)-RecurDyn simulation. The optimum parameters were obtained: the spacing of spiral was 11.4 mm, spiral outer radius was 5.5 mm, spiral inner radius was 2.9 mm and rotation speed was 10.4 r·s− 1. Based on simulation and optimization results, the device was trialed and its field performance was tested. The results show that the average seeding qualification index, reseeding index, missing index and damage index of the shaftless spiral seed discharge and delivery device were 92.6%, 5.03%, 2.4% and 0.92%, respectively, at an average surface level of 8.9 cm, which met the local agronomic requirements. The designed soybean shaftless spiral seed discharge and seed delivery device meets the requirements of the quality of no-till seeding and can provide reference for the design and improvement of seed discharger and seed guide tube under poor ground leveling and long-distance seed delivery conditions.