Efficient and Low-Loss Cleaning Method for Non-Uniform Distribution of Threshed Materials Based on Multi-Wing Curved Combination Air Screen in Computational Fluid Dynamics/Discrete Element Method Simulations

Longhai Wang, Xiaoyu Chai (), Juan Huang, Jinpeng Hu and Zhihong Cui
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Longhai Wang: School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Xiaoyu Chai: School of Agricultural Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Juan Huang: School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Jinpeng Hu: School of Agricultural Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Zhihong Cui: School of Agricultural Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-29

Abstract: During the operation of the longitudinal axis flow threshing device of a combine harvester, the threshed materials form accumulations and blockages on both sides of the screen surface, severely affecting the harvesting process. To evenly distribute the materials on the screen and solve the blockage issue, a multi-wing curved combination centrifugal fan is designed to match the mass distribution of the threshed materials. The movement mechanism of rice threshed materials in the cleaning shoe of a longitudinal axis flow combine harvester is investigated using the coupled CFD-DEM simulation method. The cleaning efficiency and performance of the traditional straight-blade fan screen device and the newly designed cleaning device are compared and analyzed, and field tests are conducted. The results show that the trajectory of the threshed materials cleaned by the device equipped with the multi-wing curved combination centrifugal fan is consistent with the mass distribution of the materials separated by the longitudinal axis flow threshing device. The absolute value of the centroid velocity of the material group in the X/Y direction is greater than that of the traditional fan, indicating that the movement speed of the particle group in the optimized fan is greater than that of the traditional fan. Therefore, in the actual cleaning process, the optimized fan’s air flow distribution more effectively accelerates the movement speed of the threshed materials, increasing the amount of materials cleaned per unit time, thereby improving the cleaning efficiency. Field comparative tests show that the designed cleaning device reduced the cleaning loss rate by up to 25.00% and the impurity content rate by 32.20%, achieving efficient and low-damage cleaning of the combine harvester. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method for evenly distributing the materials and provides important reference for the study of other piled particle distribution systems.

Keywords: cleaning mechanism; air-mass matching strategy; CFD-DEM; combine harvester (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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