In response to the demand for mechanized potato harvesting among ordinary agricultural households, research was conducted on potato harvesters. The current status and development trends of mechanization reform for small and medium-sized planting scales were analyzed. Consequently, a small and medium-sized potato harvester was designed; the designed harvester mainly consists of the following components: the harvester body structure, soil plowing mechanism, soil breaking and collecting mechanism, conveyor belt mechanism, cleaning mechanism, size sorting and screening mechanism, and towing mechanism, suitable for harvesting potatoes in small and medium-sized plots. The deformation and stress analysis of the key stressed parts of the harvester can optimize the mechanical structure design. Therefore, taking the plough shovel and the soil breaking shovel as examples, the finite element analysis software ANAYS was used to establish a nonlinear finite element model, analyze the stress in the working state, and compare it with the allowable stress of the corresponding structural steel to verify the feasibility of the structure.

Junlin Huang, Tiancheng Huang, Yanzhe Ni, Wei Lu. Design of a Small and Medium-Sized Potato Harvester. International Journal of Frontiers in Engineering Technology (2024), Vol. 6, Issue 4: 96-102. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFET.2024.060416.

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