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Wild chrysanthemum has a high medicinal value. Its mechanized harvest can improve harvesting efficiency, reduce labor costs and improve planting benefits, which is an important way to promote artificial planting. However, one of the difficulties in mechanized harvesting is the large diameter and hardness of the stem, leading to high cutting resistance and power consumption. In order to reduce cutting resistance and power consumption, a bionic cutting blade is designed in this paper by employing the bionics principle and the contour of the cricket’s upper jaw incisor lobe instead of the sharp triangular teeth of the standard harvester blade. Using the finite element method, the cutting-edge angle, cutting angle, and reciprocating speed were taken as test factors. The maximum shear force and power consumption were taken as evaluation indexes. At the same time, the center combination simulation test was carried out to optimize the cutting body and to determine the optimal cutting speed. When the cutting-edge angle was 21°, the cutting angle was 66°, the reciprocating speed was 1.29 m/s, and the maximum shear force and power consumption were minimal. The results showed that the maximum shear force of the bionic cutter was reduced by 18% and the power consumption by 15.8%. The bench test showed that the maximum shear force and power consumption of the bionic cutter were reduced by 10.5% and 10.8%, respectively, when the entire wild chrysanthemum stem was cut. The results can provide a reference for the mechanical harvesting of wild chrysanthemum stems.

Due to a lack of an accurate model in finite element simulation of mechanized harvesting of wild chrysanthemum, the stem of wild chrysanthemum in the harvesting period is taken as the research object. ANSYS Workbench 19.0 software and LS-DYNA software (LS-PrePOST-4.3-X64) are used to calibrate the finite element simulation model of wild chrysanthemum stem cutting. The stem diameter distribution at the cutting height of the chrysanthemum is obtained. The maximum shear forces at different diameters (7 mm, 8 mm, 9 mm, 10 mm, and 11 mm) within the cutting range are determined as 120.0 N, 159.2 N, 213.8 N, 300.0 N, and 378.2 N, respectively, by using a biomechanical testing machine and a custom-made shear blade. The Plastic_Kinematic failure model is used to simulate the cutting process by the finite element method. The Plackett–Burman test is employed to screen out the test factors that significantly affect the results, namely, the yield stress, failure strain, and strain rate parameter C. The regression model between the shear force and significant parameters is obtained by central composite design experiments. To obtain the model parameters, the measured values are substituted into the regression equation as the simulation target values. In other words, the yield stress is 17.96 MPa, the strain rate parameter C is 87.27, and the failure strain is 0.0387. The maximum shear force simulation test is carried out with the determined parameters. The results showed that the maximum error between the simulated and the actual value of the maximum shear force of wild chrysanthemum stems with different diameters is 7.8%. This indicates that the calibrated parameters of the relevant stem failure model can be used in the finite element method simulation and provide a basis for subsequent simulations.