Design and test of chain guide rail-type plastic film collector

Abstract: With the development of plastic film mulching cultivation technology, crop output increases substantially and crops are suitable for more areas. Consequently, a change of agricultural production mode and a leap of agricultural productivity occurred thereafter. However, with the application scope of the film expanding quickly, its side effects also emerges. Because of the "white pollution" caused by the remnant plastic film after potato etc. crops harvest, it is very important to solve the problem of low gathering film efficiency, leaking film, separating soil and film ,wrapping film, unloading film of the existing plastic film collector. In order to counter the problems mentioned above, and combine with agronomic requirements of potato, a new project of chain guide rail-type plastic film collection is designed in this paper. Loosening soil shovels and picking-up film teeth which are next to each other in a chain, cooperate together to improve the rate of gathering film. The pallet of mulching film is in row structure, which will be able to leak soil, and further boost the efficiency to separate soil and film. While operating correctly, shovels loose soil and picking-up film teeth penetrate plastic film to pick them up. Plastic film is transported through the gap between picking-up film tooth and pallet, and then scraped by unloading impeller to collecting tank. Pallet springs will realize the space of picking-up film tooth and Pallet adapt to the quantity of gathering film. Thus, the film will not be left over, lost and blocked. Also it is ensured the entire remnant mulching film is gathered and delivered to the top of collecting film box. Unloading impeller and guide rail cooperate with each other to unload, so that wrapping film becomes much easier. Picking-up film tooth is able to slide over backwards to the side of film-unloading between the circular rail, and retreat from the circular rail, in order to separate of the picking-up film teeth and the plastic film. Picking-up film agencies，gathering film agencies, unloading film agencies are installed together in bracket fixing. They can adjust the fixing bracket through the angle adjustment lever, change the angle of loosening soil shovel to adapt the requirement. This paper designs and invents a chain guide rail-type plastic film collector which includes the function of picking-up film, gathering film, uploading film and collecting film. Each component of the chain-type plastic film collector is modeled and the virtual assembly is finished by Pro/ENGINEER. At the same time, FEM analysis is carried out to study the stress and deformation of the structure of the key components. The experimental results show that: this machine named the chain guide rail-type plastic film collector can achieve the goal of picking-up film, gathering film, uploading film and collecting film all in one. Under the help of this machine, the gathering film rate is over 92% after the potatoes are harvested. The design solves the difficulty of mechanization in collecting the plastic potato film. Results show that the designed machine is able to pick up plastic film successfully after harvesting potatoes. And it can be applied to other crops as well. Therefore, this paper has both economic and social benefit.