The study of the process of orientation of the flax strip in flax harvesters

BACKGROUND: An important feature of fiber flax is a significant difference in the timing of fiber formation and seed maturation. Therefore, in order to obtain the greatest effect from both types of products, a time gap between the cultivation of plants and the separation of seeds from them is necessary. The use of the two-phase flax harvesting technology, in which the second phase is most dependent on weather conditions and is responsible for the selection of dried plants and the separation of seeds from them, will make it possible to satisfy this requirement. In Russian conditions, this operation is most effectively performed by combing pickers with combing machines that reliably work with flax of any ripeness and moisture. However, the quality of operation of such devices is noticeably reduced with accidental deviations of the picker towards butt or vertex parts of the plant ribbon. To eliminate errors of the harvested strip copying before feeding it to the combing unit, it is advisable to use an orienting device made as an inclined table with conveyors, which ensures the displacement of plants in the direction of the tilt of the table under the uncontrolled and short-term influence of gravity. Therefore, this process needs further investigation. AIM: Justification of the parameters of the orienting device for correcting errors in horizontal copying of the flax strip by the picking machine of the flax harvester. METHODS: Studies of the process of plants displacement in the orienting device were carried out in stationary conditions using the experimental laboratory unit. At the same time, the amount of displacement of the flax strip under the action of gravity of the stems along the inclined table of the orienting device was determined depending on the table inclination angle, the speed of its conveyors and the moisture content of the plant mass. RESULTS: The results of the conducted studies adequately state the ability of the orienting device to effectively correct the consequences of accidental deviations of the picker from the plant strip before feeding it to the combing device. The indicated effect will be ensured with a length of an inclined table of 1 m, a conveyor speed of 2 m/s and a tilt of the table of 60°. A slight influence of plant moisture on the operation of the orienting device in combination with a combing device in the design of the comb picker will reduce the dependence of the two-phase flax harvesting on weather conditions. CONCLUSION: The results obtained clearly show the expediency of using the orienting device to correct errors in horizontal copying of a flax strip by a flax harvesting machine. The study results were used to create the prototypes of the POL-1.5K flax strip combing picker, which was tested in production conditions in the fields of flax farms.