OPTIMISING THE FORWARD FEEDING ZONE OF HARVESTERS: DEVELOPMENT OF A RESEARCH PLATFORM

The gathering system, the forward feeding zone (incorporating the knockdown and finned rollers and the basecutters), and the feed train roller speed set-up are areas needing improvement to reduce glut/starve feeding in harvesters. Alternative concepts were developed to improve the functionality of the gathering system and feed train elements. However, there remains a lack of understanding of the interactions occurring between the components and cane in the forward feeding zone during gathering, feeding, basecutting and buttlifting. The interaction of these components with the cane needs to be fully understood to address the issues of feeding, including minimum knockdown angle for butt-first feeding, control of cane for active feeding and minimising dirt intake. A novel approach was developed to modify an existing harvester to allow alternative forward feeding systems to be set up and tested under identical conditions. Modifications to the front end allowed incorporation of any forward feeding layout by fitting a choice of specially manufactured modules. Two modules were developed, which incorporated the leg and underslung basecutter configurations. Each module, when installed, allows the harvester to be operated as a fully functional harvester. Instrumentation including high-speed cine film and data acquisition of loadings on components to characterise the flow of cane was used. Comparative trials under varying crop conditions benchmarked the flow of cane through the leg basecutter and underslung basecutter modules. The flexibility of the modular format enables enhanced forward feeding geometries to be evaluated and quantified using identical harvester extractor/chopper/extractor setups. Importantly, these modules can be fully evaluated in the field under commercial conditions. The functionality and performance of the harvester has demonstrated that the system is extremely flexible and offers a powerful test platform for researching the performance of harvester feeding systems worldwide.