UDC 631.356.44
DOI 10.36461/NP.2025.76.4.003
THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATION OF THE DESIGN AND KINEMATIC PARAMETERS OF THE BEATER-ROTOR LOOSENER OF A POTATO HARVESTER
K.Z. Kukhmazov, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, A.M. Kolesnikov, Postgraduate
Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Penza State Agrarian University",
Penza, Russia, tel. 89273624824,
The potato is an important food crop and is widely cultivated in many regions of the Russian Federation, including Penza Oblast.
One of the most labor-intensive technological processes in potato cultivation is harvesting. On heavy soils, harvesting is performed using various potato harvesters, which use digging blades to lift the soil layer with tubers and transfer it to separating chain elevators, where soil impurities are sifted out and tubers, tops, and unsorted clumps are dumped behind the machine onto the field surface. The main disadvantages of potato harvesters are low productivity and a large amount of soil impurities in the harvested potato pile.
To increase the productivity of the harvesting unit and reduce soil impurities in the harvested potato pile, Penza State Agrarian University has modernized a KT-2V potato harvester by installing a beater-rotor soil loosener in front of the main elevator. The beater-rotor loosener consists of a blade beater and a rotor shaft, rotating toward each other at the same linear speeds.
Theoretical studies have established the radius of the rotor shaft as R = 65 mm, the radius of the beater as R = 300 mm, the length of the beater blade as l = 250 mm, and the number of blades on the beater as z = 12 pcs. Equations describing the trajectory of the tip of the blade of the beater and a formula for determining the absolute speed of the beater when interacting with the soil layer were also derived.
Keywords: potatoes, potato pile, potato harvesting, potato harvester, rotor shaft, blade beater, rotor shaft radius, blade beater radius, linear speed, absolute speed.
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