INMATEH - Agricultural Engineering

6

Authors: Nalobina О.O., Gerasymchuk O.P., Puts V.S., Marchuk M.M.

The article deals with the dynamics of mechanism for arranging the flax stems line on the conveyor belt. There were developed the equations of the kinematic pair which is included as a compound of mechanism. The equation for calculating the conveyor belt length was developed.

6

Authors: Derevjnko D., Sukmaniuk E, Derevjnko O.

The article deals with the technological process of seed drying beginning with the bottom layer, where the heated air enters, which is quickly saturated with moisture from the grains. The higher the seed layers are placed, the less they are drying, which is the main cause of uneven quality for a certain time and can cause cracks, injury and deterioration of quality. In the work, the diagrams of forces’ influence on grains are shown while moving along with the auger screw turns. The speed of the screw, the pressure of the seed to the body and the angle of the screw spiral, which influence the seeds injury, were studied. Optimal and proper drying conditions for seeds of different crops are established, which are the main factors in obtaining high quality seeds, especially of high energy and similarity.

8

Authors: Dudarev I., Kirchuk R.

The design of spiral separator in question is based on the analysis of bulk materials separators. It has advantages over the known devices. Spiral separator is maintenance-friendly compact mechanism with a simple drive. As a tool, the spiral separating screen is used. This allows intensifying the separation process and separate bulk materials into several fractions. The empirical and theoretical dependence for describing the process of bulk materials separation by spiral separator is obtained. The methodology of definition coefficients of mathematical equations is developed. They depend on the material fractional composition and its initial settings. The experimental research for defining the separation coefficients is conducted. The processed pellets and flax fibre shives are used. The mathematical model of bulk materials separation by spiral separator is obtained and the method of determining bulk materials separation coefficients by designing a type of spiral separator is developed. The concept of spiral separator efficiency coefficient characterizing the separation degree of the bulk material fine fraction is introduced. The dependence to justify the length of the spiral separator cage is obtained.

8

Authors: Hazervazifeh A., Nikbakht A.M., Moghaddam P.A., Sharifian F.

Finite element numerical solution was employed to solve coupled model of electromagnetic, heat and mass transfer phenomena in microwave dehydration of sugar cube. For microwave power 880 W, pulsing ratios 1.5, 2.5, 4.5 and 10 were applied to prevent thermal runaway. Colour quality of dried sugar cubes was assessed by calculating whiteness, yellowness and total colour difference. Results revealed that uniform heating as a major issue of drying was improved with pulsing ratio. Moreover, low pulsing ratios yielded to lower colour quality. Thus, preferable pulsing ratio based on heating uniformity and colour quality of dried sugar cube is 10.

8

Authors: Roşca R., Cârlescu P., Ţenu I.

In the present paper the deformation of the tire section is under load is taken into account. The tire section is considered to be elliptical; under load the minor axis decreases, while the major axis increases. The equations of the traction model were incorporated in a computer program; the length, width and area of the contact patch, the traction force and traction efficiency are calculated for each value of the wheel slip. Field tests were performed in order to validate the model; the experimental data were collected during plowing tests. In order to evaluate the precision of the model the predicted data were compared with the test data by the means of a goodness-of-fit analysis.

10

Authors: Baranovsky V.M., P.G. Skalsky O.Ju., Pankiv M.R., Pastushenko A.S.

The stages of improvement, structure and modes of digging tools of root harvesters’ transport-technology systems have been described in this paper. The main ways of improvement, development principles and construction algorithm of combined digging machine for chicory root crops harvesting have been considered on the basis of research objects identification (conventional types of diggers). It was found that the construction algorithm of chicory roots combined harvester functional design must be based on mono block technological-transport systems development where digging tools are supposed to perform related technological operations simultaneously, namely: preliminary and final root crops digging, their topping. The results of experimental researches, the regression equation describing the change in loss and damage chicory root crops depending on the parameters of the combined digger are presented. It is established that the condition providing generalized criteria (root crop loss less than 2.5%, root crop damage less than 15%) performed digger combined velocity of 1.5 m/s, rotational speed of the drive shaft 500 Rpm and depth of the ripper 16 cm.

10

Authors: Feizolahzadeh M., Modarres Motlagh A., Banakar A.

This paper proposes the design, construction and testing of a solar dish collector with changeable structure and evaluates its overall thermal conversion performance. The changeable parameters of the parabolic dish collector are as follows: focal length of the dish (f), aperture diameter of dish (D), dish rim angle (φ), area of the receiver (A) and concentration ratio (CR). Results show that the solar dish collector system could reach a power output of 1973 W in a typical setup. Using the mentioned setup, 1 kg of water will be boiled in 2.5 minutes, which is enough to produce 192 kg boiling water per day that will be used at night for greenhouse heating.

10

Authors: Chao Xiaofei, Cai Cheng, Zhang Zhiyong, Nie Liangbing, Li Shuqin

This paper compares the discriminative ability of six LBP-like texture descriptors for tropical wood classification, LBP, uniform LBP, rotation invariant LBP, rotation invariant uniform LBP, covariance of LBP and covariance of LBP difference were considered. Experiments on wood image dataset with 54 wood species was carried out, experimental results show that these six descriptors combined with nearest neighbour classifier achieve recognition rate of 97.50%, 96.64%, 92.84%, 88.55%, 54.40% and 56.53% respectively. LBP is the best and one of the efficient wood texture descriptors among these six LBP-like descriptors. LBP8,8 is the best and most stable wood texture feature, the recognition rate of and are 97.84% and 97.41% respectively, the time to classify one image by them is 0.28 second and 0.08 second. Compared with existing wood image classification methods, the combination of LBP descriptor with nearest neighbour classifier is very simple, it does not need the feature selection and training process, and it achieves much better time efficiency and a slightly lower recognition rate than the existing algorithms.

6

Authors: Bohatyrov D.V., Salo V.М., Kyslun О.А., Skrynnik I.O., Kisilov R.V.

The article presents a theoretical research on the influence of introducing height equal-area projection on the calculation accuracy of the air resistance power of the cylinder drum with blades. The effort was made to specify the resistance area depending on the angle setting and the number of blades of the crimper-roller. Research on the introduction of the equal-area projection of the height on the description accuracy of the crimper-roller air resistance power showed that the fractional error decreases by 1.5 times. This is explained by the absence of the uncertainty influence of the cylinder drum initial angle setting.

6

Authors: Bundza O.Z., Nalobina О.O., Nikitin V.G., Tkachuk O.L.

The article deals with the kinetics of the weeding process. The authors analyse the key figures to evaluate the effectiveness of machines for contact application; they also present the equation to calculate the final accuracy of the process.

6

Authors: Hevko B.M., Diachun A.Y., Dzyura V.O., Skyba O.P., Mel’nychuk S.L.

The new design of an installation for extracting sapropel is proposed. The theoretical background of sapropel extraction is developed. Based on the second order Lagrange equations and the standard program of numerical method Kunna-Tucker, the differential equation of bucket oscillation is derived. The graphic dependences of changing the angle of bucket deformation are developed as well as the linear horizontal and vertical deformation during unloading the bucket.

6

Authors: Sakhno V.P., Marchuk M.M., Marchuk R.M.

The long-haul truck movement along the curvilinear (in plan) trajectory is studied in this article. Braking the wheels of the bogie’s one side is proved to lead to the fact that the absolute instantaneous centre of the bogie turn, when coming into a corner and coming out of a corner, will be on different sides of the semi-trailer bogie axles. The side force of the bogie is directed towards the transfer centre of semi-trailer angular velocity when coming into a corner and, in the opposite direction, when coming out of a corner. Therefore, braking the wheels of one side frame of a bogie rear axle is considered more efficient.

6

Authors: Moise V., Tabǎrǎ I., Dudici C.L., Bǎnicǎ E., Rotaru Al., Boureci Gh. A., Stroe I.

The manipulation of cylindrical and spherical parts and blanks by using robots, to move them from a working place to another requires that the gripper fulfils certain conditions. This mechanism must be self-centring, to avoid the deterioration of the robots. In this paper, we made a synthesis of some self-centring grippers, by amplification with simple modular groups, usually RRR dyads. The grippers in the synthesis are considered to be with rigid fingers and with movable catching point.

8

Authors: Selvi K.Ç., Sağlam M, Dengiz O

In this study carried out in 2011 and 2012, the effects of four different tillage practices [plow + disc harrow + rotary tiller + direct seeding machine (TP1), chisel + disc harrow + rotary tiller + direct seeding machine (TP2), plow + rotary tiller + direct seeding machine (TP3), direct drilling (TP4)] and control plot without planting (TP5) on the soil bulk density (BD), moisture content and penetration resistance of a clayey textured soil were evaluated in the central Black Sea Region of Turkey with a geostatistical approach. The values of soil compaction indicators were significantly greater under the TP4 treatment than in the case of TP1 and TP2 after harvest, especially at 20-40 cm depth in 2011 and 2012. Overall, our results suggest the avoidance of direct seeding practices in high clay content soils.

8

Authors: Sarnavi H.J., Nikbakht A.M., Hasanpour A., Shahbazi F., Aste N., Adhikari R.S.

On-farm detailed electric load profile is becoming increasingly important in the context of renewable energy source implementation in livestock housing due to rising energy costs along with concerns over greenhouse gas emissions. This study aimed to propose and investigate a pragmatic methodology to determine detailed energy demand profile in dairy farm sizes of 20 to 100 cows as the most common size in Iran. A model was developed based on the case studied dairy farm conditions, including artificial lighting, milking, milk cooling and water pumping subsections. This research prepares the first step toward employing photovoltaic electricity in dairy farms and thereby encouraging sustainable dairy farming.

8

Authors: Tsurkan O.V., Gerasimov O.O., Polyevoda Y.A., Tverdokhlib I.V., Rimar T.I., Stanislavchuk O.V.

Drying coefficients depending on the main process parameters of fresh-peeled pumpkin seeds (FPPS) vibration and combined dehydration and relative drying coefficient on the basis of the constructed graphic dependence are defined. Dependences for calculation of moisture and time of FPPS dewatering in the studied change range of drying process parameters are displayed.

8

Authors: Niu P., Yang M.J., Chen J., Yang L., Xie S.Y., Chen X.B.

Exposure to severe vibration while tilling presents a serious health and safety risk to a handheld tiller operator. Handrail of the tiller transfers vibration from tiller to operator with an essential extent. Taking handrail of Shineray SR1Z-80 tiller as a case study, its vibration characteristics were investigated by means of Computational Modal Analysis and Experimental Modal Analysis, resulting in good agreement on natural frequency and mode shape within interested frequency range of the vibration, and the average relative error of natural frequency between them is less than 4%. Handle, rod and cross bar are main sections of the handrail that affect the vibration with decreasing level of influence regarding displacements. Structural optimization of the handrail was obtained by orthogonal factorial experiment design technique and statistical analysis of variance. The optimal dimensions of the handrail are handle length 170 mm, rod length 470 mm, and cross bar length 390 mm.

10

Authors: Liu X.C., Chen S., Wen L.Y.

The query system established through integer linear programming (ILP) model can rapidly respond to query operation in agrometeorological data query service. However, related existing studies have only discussed about known network layer information, extremely high time complexity exists under complicated large-scale environment, and query result cannot be acquired. Therefore, a distributed matching-based heuristic ILP query algorithm was proposed in this study for large-scale network and unknown status of network layer information to improve distributed data query capability. The lower bound of space–time cost of the query system was certified under unknown status of network layer information, under which circumstance ILP model and algorithm design were proposed formally. Finally, disjoint path allocation and node replication allocation methods were used to design universal query system algorithms when network layer information was known and unknown, respectively. Experimental results showed that the distributed matching-based query system algorithm proposed in this study could obtain optimal solution in large-scale agrometeorological network and was not restricted to fixed network topology. When the cost ratio of storage to a unit delay cost was 10, the query system cost would present a linear growth; when the ratio was greater than 30, the storage cost would rapidly decrease, but the delay cost increased and the algorithm would run fast. Accordingly, the proposed algorithm could flexibly realize effective balance between storage cost and query delay. Conclusions of this study can provide theoretical and technical references for data query in intelligent agrometeorological service cloud system.

6

Authors: Qiaoxia An, Sanmin Sun, Rong Xu

Jujube fruit, also called Chinese jujube (Zizyphus jujuba Mill.), is the main economic crop in Southern XinJiang province of China. However, due to the lack of suitable jujube irrigation technology, it not only wastes water resources, but also increases soil salinization. Indirect subsurface drip irrigation is a kind of high efficient water-saving irrigation technology, suitable for fruit tree irrigation. Dripper discharge is an important parameter in irrigation design. In this paper, an indoor experiment was adopted, and the effect of different dripper discharges on the distribution rules of water and salt were analysed in wetted body under indirect subsurface drip irrigation, and appropriate dripper discharges was selected to adjust the growth environment of crop root system. This study aims to provide theoretical guidance on using the indirect subsurface drip irrigation technology for jujubes in arid area.

8

Authors: Zhenfeng Xu, Junjie Chen, Gang Yu, Yahui Wang

In order to reduce the energy consumption of greenhouse cooling in subtropical and tropical regions, we proposed a switching control strategy based on temperature prediction model. Due to the facilities driven by the on-off actuators in many greenhouses, the cooling system was treated as a hybrid system with discrete operating modes. When the indoor air temperature reaches the upper limit set by growers, the IARX model in each mode is used to predict the indoor air temperature over a specified horizon respectively. Then the energy consumption of each mode is pre-estimated and the mode with minimum estimation is selected. The control strategy was simulated. The energy saving potential of the proposed control strategy is related to a variety of factors. In this simulation, the results indicate that the control strategy saves 15.4% energy within the temperature range (20°C, 30°C); while it saves 24.6% energy within the temperature range (24°C, 30°C), compared with a reference with fixed switching rules. Finally, the main influencing factors of energy consumption were discussed. The conclusions are instructive for the future application of the control strategy.

8

Authors: Golub G.A., Kukharets S.M., Yarosh Y.D., Kukharets V.V.

The paper substantiates the mechanical and technological principles of formalizing the structure of agroecosystems on the basis of optimizing the interdependence between the elements of the agroecosystem within a specified range of conditions. The equipment for the production of bioenergy resources is improved by means of minimizing its energy capacity with all qualitative indices of the technological processes preserved.

10

Authors: Kobets A.S., Ponomarenko N.O., Kharytonov M.M.

The original methods for determining the critical velocity impact on a metal surface, taking into account the moisture content of the granules and the influence of the wind on the final distribution have been developed. The research technique of influence on the airflow make possible to determine the effect of speed, both in laminar and turbulent modes. The proposed rotary working body designs, structural features of which enable to improve the dispersion evenness of mineral fertilizer, are presented.

10

Authors: Lixian Zhang, Zhongping Yang, Qiang Zhang, Xinhua Zhu, Haijun Hu

Corn stalk pith (CSP) is porous and highly elastic, which makes it an excellent renewable packaging material with good cushioning properties. This paper investigated some important mechanical properties of corn stalk pith. The effects of moisture content, internodal position and variety on corn stalk pith’s tensile strength and the Young’s modulus were experimentally determined. A discrete element model (DEM) was developed to simulate the tensile testing process. It was found that the mechanical properties of corn stalk pitch were highly variable, with a tensile strength in the range of 0.2-1.35MPa, and Young’s modulus 0.02-0.19GPa. The tensile strength of CSP increased with moisture content, while the Young’s modulus showed the opposite tendency. From the DEM simulations of the load-displacement curve of CSP, the values of key mechanical properties in the DEM were determined: the normal stiffness coefficient kn = (0.5-3) x 106 N/m; the tangent stiffness coefficient ks= 1.0x106N/m; the normal bonding coefficient n-bond = (5-50) N/m3; and the tangential bonding coefficient s-bond = (10-50) N/m3. These values provided important and necessary data for further analysing the mechanical properties of packaging materials made of CSP.

10

Authors: Pankiv V.R., Tokarchuk O.A.

This paper presents the structure and technological processes of combined grinding screw conveyor. The theoretical dependencies, which describe the nature of the geometric factor of screw conveyor and load factor of combined grinding screw conveyor, depending on its design parameters, are also substantiated here.

10

Authors: Boukirat D., Maatoug M., Zerrouki D., Lahouel H., Heilmeier H., Kharytonov M.

The aim of this work is to study the possibility of remedying polluted agricultural soils by lead with the association: earthworms / barley. An experimentation of sixty pots was conducted in controlled conditions containing artificially contaminated soil by lead. It is divided into three systems: S1: soil-plant; S2: soil-earthworms; S3: soil-plant-earthworms, and five blocks representing lead concentrations: control; 500 µg g1; 1000 µg g-1; 1500 µg g-1and 2000 µg g-1 with 4 replicas each. The results show that the S3 system (soil-plant-earthworm) has the highest remediation rate compared to the two other: S1 (soil-earthworm), S2 (soil-plant). The presence of earthworms Lumbricus sp decreases the bioaccumulation of lead by Hordeum vulgare, while concentrations recorded in earthworm tissues suggests that the presence of the plant considerably increase those concentrations. The concentrations of lead in soil, earthworms and plants are influenced by the physical and chemical soil parameters; however, other factors related to the pollutant, the species of both earthworm and plant and their interactions can increase or decrease retention of lead by the soil and its bioaccumulation.

14

Authors: Pylypaka S.F., Klendii M.B., Klendii O.M.

Particle relative motion over a rough surface of a rotary vertical axis helicoid has been considered. Differential equations of particle motion have been produced at its movement over the surface of a helicoid as well as at its contact with a restrictive cylindrical casing. The equations have been solved by numerical methods. The obtained results have been visualized.