Design of the Sorghum Root Stalk Reaper Machine

Adino, Amare Kassie

BDU IR Home
→
Bahir Dar Institute of Technology (BiT)
→
Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
→
Mechanical Design
→
Thesis
→
View Item

dc.contributor.author	Adino, Amare Kassie
dc.date.accessioned	2022-03-28T07:07:03Z
dc.date.available	2022-03-28T07:07:03Z
dc.date.issued	2021-10
dc.identifier.uri	http://ir.bdu.edu.et/handle/123456789/13338
dc.description.abstract	Harvesting, a crucial field operation for any food grain crop, is the process of reaping the crop when it reaches physiological maturity in order to ensure the highest possible recovery of quality product. Rapid harvesting provide extra days in order to prepare the land and to plan the next crop earlier specialy for irrigation based farming. and currently the country is also tries to transform rain based agriculture to irrigation. The sorghum fields of Raya-Kobo and Azebo were chosen as study sites to better understand the effects of manual sorghum harvesting practices. The main examined draw backs were low sorghum yield productivity due to the lack of affordable modern machineries, inadequate control of repeated sorghum crop losses due to unexpected rains, labor crisis and long harvesting process during the harvesting peak period. Hence, the aim of this research was to build a compatible sorghum reaper machine by using different methods. The initial approach involved measuring the diameter, length, and weight of seed-stage sorghum stalks by collecting samples from fields and recording the stalk's tensile and shear strength values using a universal tester machine. The reaper component were then constructed by preparing concept development and selection, based on produced AHP selection criteria, from Indian forage stalk maize reapers, turkey rice reapers, and china hemp reapers. The designed machine is self-propelled and powered by a 14 hp diesel engine truck positioned in the back at full load. CATIA V5, R19 software was used to create 2D and 3D models of part of a reaper. The reaper shafts analytical designs were compared with FEM using ANSYS, the results were accomplished with less than 5.5% errors. Particularly in the reciprocating system of the cutter bar, cranks and cutter bars were simulated using created mat lab codes to reduce such catastrophic failures. As a result, the crank is in proper rotation, and the cutter bar is in exact translation. The forward speed in full load, m V , 1.3 / ms , Cutting speed, f V 1.82 / ms , and Conveying speed, s V , 3.076 / ms were analyzed as significant points. Finally, if this reaper machine is built soon, it will be capable of reaping 4.67km /hr of matured sorghum fields. Key words: Crop losses, FEM, manual harvesting, mechanized agriculture, Sorghum.	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.subject	Mechanical Design	en_US
dc.title	Design of the Sorghum Root Stalk Reaper Machine	en_US
dc.type	Thesis	en_US