DESIGN AND TESTING OF A GAP ADJUSTABLE ELASTIC LOW DAMAGE CORN PICKING HEADER BASED ON ADAMS

To address the high damage rate and impurity content in corn ear picking, this study proposes the design of a gap-adjustable elastic low damage corn picking header. Theoretical analysis of the adaptive gap adjustment mechanism for the picking plate and the flexible picking mechanism will be conducted. Simulation experiments will be performed considering three factors: the stiffness coefficient of the compression spring, the rotational speed of the stalk-pulling roller, and the thickness of the flexible body. The test results indicate that the minimum collision force on the fruit cluster occurs when the stiffness coefficient of the compression spring is 36 N/mm, the rotational speed of the stalk-pulling roller is 700 r/min, and the thickness of the flexible body is 6 mm. When the header tilt angle was 25 degrees and the working speed was 3 km/h, using the stalk roller speed as the experimental variable, the collision force of the gap-adjustable elastic low-damage corn picking header was compared to that of the ordinary plate-type corn picking header. The results indicated that the collision force of the gap-adjustable elastic low-damage corn picking header was reduced by more than 25 % compared to the ordinary plate-type corn picking header.