Examining the effectiveness of smashing cane by impact loading in the shredder

A numerical model which tracks the paths of cane's parenchyma cells and fibrovascular bundles has been used to simulate the impact loading of a high-speed large mass on cane. The model is able to simulate the progression of failure in the cane structure during impact loading. The simulations showed that as the cells failed, the projectile subsequently move through the failed region, while the remaining cane structure was given time to accelerate and thereby reduce the loading when contact was made. The model has indicated the shortcomings of using an intensive energy event such as impact loading to break apart the structure of a biological material such as sugarcane, which has many mechanisms to absorb energy and thereby reduce the effectiveness of the impact loading. The numerical model was based on the discrete element method (DEM), a technique desighned specifically for discontinuous events such as the impact loading of sugarcane, where the cane breaks principally into two discrete components, parenchyma cells and fibrovasscular bundles. The sugarcane discrete element geometry mas modelled closely on the structure of the cane stalk, using measured sizes and distributions of these components. The connectivity between the components was dodelled by assuming bonding between the elements where the bond parameters were measured experimentally. The sugarcane discrete element model is shown to overcome the inadequacies of a reported finite element analysis of a cane billet hit by a high-speed hammer.