Study of the efficiency of disk chopping machines

Forest plantations, as an effective method of managing the growing process of timber, are attracting more and more attention of the world forestry. The use of plantations has reduced timber regeneration in natural forests by 20 %. However, the realization of such projects is only necessary under certain social and economic incentives. Therefore, it is necessary not only to restore forests, but also to grow them to meet specific needs, including the production of fuel chips. To maximize the efficient processing of fine wood raw materials, it is recommended to use mobile chippers. At present, most of the chippers used in practice do not have effective mechanisms for chip ejection, which leads to a limited volume of produced material and a high degree of energy intensity of the working process. Therefore, the conducted research is of great relevance. This paper presents the results of laboratory studies on the influence of technological parameters of wood material shredding using a disk chipper on the efficiency of ejection of the resulting chips. In the process of research, the relationships between the technological parameters of the new mechanism of chip ejection and the productivity of the machine for ejecting the wood raw materials were determined. Laboratory studies were conducted on an experimental wood residue shredding machine equipped with an improved mechanism of chip transportation from a disk chipper, which was used both in laboratory conditions and in field tests. A VS-401 non-contact optical rotation sensor was used for measurements, which was connected to a strain gauge station and a personal computer. The multifactorial experiment plan included changing the drive pulley gear ratio for different chopping disk speed parameters. The studies were carried out with three times repetition. Processing of the results was carried out using the “Tachometer” software and the Statistica 7.0 application program on a personal computer. Geometric characteristics of wood chips were determined based on the analysis of fractional composition obtained with the help of analyzer sieves. For this purpose, we used chip samples obtained after chopping of chipping residues from a special disk chipper with straight knives.