Design and Experiment of Seed Dressing Device for Cut Potatoes Based on Discrete Element Method

To address the problems of high labor intensity, high production cost, low efficiency, and unevenness in the manual seed dressing process of cut potatoes, as well as the poor quality and easy damage caused by the poor adaptability of existing seed dressing equipment, this study designs a drum-type seed dressing device for cut potatoes based on design principles of seed treatment machinery. A kinematic model of the seed dressing process was established, and the process was simulated using EDEM 2024 discrete element simulation software combined with ray tracing. Two indicators commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry were introduced to evaluate seed dressing uniformity: the inter-tablet variation coefficient (CoVinter) and intra-tablet variation coefficient (CoVintra). Through single-factor experiments and three-factor, five-level orthogonal rotational combination experiments, the influence of drum speed, spiral guide plate pitch, and feed rate on the seed dressing effect were explored, and the parameters were optimized. The results show that the optimal parameter combination is a drum speed of 32.84 r·min−1, a spiral guide plate pitch of 682.64 mm, and a feed rate of 10.44 t·h−1, at which CoVinter was 6.33% and CoVintra was 6.35%. Bench tests verified that the seed dressing pass rate reached 94.1% and the breakage rate was only 0.32% under this parameter combination, meeting the requirements for seed potato treatment in mechanized potato planting. These findings can facilitate the progress of potato-seed engineering and offer theoretical and technical support for the development of mechanized potato seed dressing equipment.