Investigation of the Process of Plant Swath Alignment in the Second Stage of the Fiber Flax Swath Harvesting.

In order to reduce the dependence of the two-stage harvesting of fiber flax on weather conditions, it is advisable to use a rippling apparatus to remove the seeds from the stems. The high efficiency of the rippling process can be ensured only after correcting the errors of horizontal copying of the curvature of the flax plant swaths by a picking-up mechanism. The solution to this problem is possible with the help of an alignment device mounted between the pick-up portion and the rippling apparatus of the pickup rippling machine. The operation of the device is based on shifting the plant swath on an inclined table under the action of gravity and/or by an alignment conveyor. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the parameters and modes of operation of the alignment device for the oriented feeding of the plant swath into the rippling apparatus during the two-stage harvesting of fiber flax. It has been analytically established that the alignment device operates most effectively with dry plants at a conveyor speed of 1.5 m/s and with table angle of inclination of 60 degrees. When working with moist plants, an increase in the width of the conveyors will contribute to the activation of the process under study. The obtained results are implemented in the design of the POL-1.5K pickup-rippling machine. The effectiveness of the alignment device was evaluated in real production conditions by video recording and correlation-spectral analysis of the processes of changing the ordinates of the point(top)-end of the flax swath at the infeed (as it enters) and discharge (as it leaves) of the device. Positive changes in the internal structure of the processes under study were recorded in terms of a decrease in mean squared deviation from 7.22 cm at the infeed to 3.33 cm at the discharge from the alignment device. At the same time, the nature of oscillations at the discharge became smoother (with an increase in the correlation interval from 2.1 to 7.8 s) and narrowband with dispersion spectrum filtering in the frequency range from 0.3 to 3.3 s^–1. The filtered oscillations were the result of errors of copying the flax swath by the pickup mechanism. The quality of the alignment device operation is assessed as positive since the actual values of the mean squared deviation and the coefficient of variation of the discharge process are within acceptable limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]