Sweet Potato Vine Cutting Machine: Key Components Design and Experimental Research

Abstract

In response to technical challenges such as the difficulty in cutting long sweet potato vines in ridge furrows, low stem crushing rate, long stubble residues, and sweet high potato damage rate with the direct shredding and returning machine for sweet potato vines, this study conducted research on ridge furrow long vine removal and crushing technology, as well as optimization experiments on operating parameters. A ridge furrow boot-type vine picking knife structure, a "dynamic embedding static" shaft end anti-entanglement mechanism, and a ridge-like crushing chamber structure were designed. A high-efficiency sweet potato vine shredding and returning machine was developed, with ridge surface vine length qualification rate and ridge top stubble height as the main control indicators. The study conducted a 3-factor, 3-level orthogonal experiment in typical regions to analyze the factors of machine forward speed, knife roller speed, and ground clearance height, which significantly influence the performance. The results indicate that the optimal working parameters for the sweet potato vine cutting machine are a knife roller speed of 2000 r/min, a forward speed of 0.6 m s-1, and a ground clearance height of 10 mm. The vine crushing length qualification rate reached 94%, and the stubble height of 5.3 cm exceeded the various indicators, meeting the agricultural requirements for sweet potato harvesting.