Optimized design and energy consumption analysis of an improved feeding equipment structure based on numerical simulation

The development of unmanned feeding equipment for use in pond feeding is constrained, primarily by serious infrastructure inadequacies, limitations in the mechanisms used to dispense pellet feed, and feeding equipment designs that cannot perform advanced feeding strategies, such as uniform feeding, precise feeding, and on-demand feeding. In particular, existing unmanned feeding equipment structures are difficult to use when feeding iced trash fish, which is a type of feed that can significantly improve the flavor and protein content of carnivorous and omnivorous aquatic products. Therefore, to facilitate the feeding of iced trash fish, a hydraulic pushing rod was added to the structural design of a feeding mechanism during this study to achieve precise feeding. Additionally, a pre-treatment method for the iced trash fish was designed to achieve uniform feeding. Meanwhile, after an electromagnetic heating design was added to achieve on-demand feeding, the energy consumption was simulated for three different conditions as a comparison: one condition had no heat source, while the other two featured electromagnetic heating with two different heating power values. The results indicate that, for the proposed structural design and pre-treatment method, using an electromagnetic heating power of 19 kW enabled a full load of iced trash to be thawed in 10 min; thus, the unmanned feeding equipment could perform the heating and feeding processes simultaneously.