Research on Comb Brush Harvester and Damage Mechanism to Material. A Review

Abstract

Mechanized harvesting of crops is very important in the field of agricultural engineering, then the brush harvesting is a common way. The comb brush device is divided into four types: comb tooth type, roller spring finger type, belt comb finger type, and rod comb finger type. The picking rate and breakage rate are the indexes to evaluate the effect of comb brush harvesting devices. How to improve the picking rate and reduce damage rate is of great significance to the popularization of the devices. To improve the picking rate, the design of comb teeth should conform to the growth characteristics of crops. In this study, the application of four comb brush devices in harvesting crops was introduced, then the working principles and results were summarized. Meanwhile, the research status of a variable finger spacing device was summarized. In addition, to study fruit damage caused by brush devices during harvesting, three common analysis methods were summarized. The application situations and key steps were listed, and the modeling methods of material fruit in simulation analysis were analyzed. The study is intended to provide a reference for improving the harvesting effect of comb brush device. In the future, with the deepening combination of agronomy and agricultural machinery technology, comb brush harvesters will be more widely applied.