Design and experiments of the fruit and vegetable three-dimensional dicing machine

In order to improve the cutting quality and cutting efficiency of domestic dicing machine, a new fruit and vegetable dicing machine was designed. The machine adopted three-dimensional dicing technology, including rotary propeller feeding, slicing by centrifugal cutting method, shredding by disk grill knives and finally dicing by crosscut knives. The structure and working principle of the machine was described, the forces of potato in centrifugal cutting roller was studied, and then the minimum rotating speed of the roller was determined (133.3 r/min). Analysis of small cross-section curve equation, diced cross section could be found in three different shapes. By comparing the diced cross-section shape and bias under the different corresponding rotating speed ratio between centrifugal cutting roller and crosscut knives, the optimum ratio was obtained (0.17). Prototype cutting experiments showed that smooth potato cubes with specifications of 15 mm × 15 mm × 15 mm and 20 mm × 20 mm × 20 mm were cut out, the relative percentage of irregularity degree was 11.7% and 12.7%, all less than 15%.Therefore, the expected target has been achieved, and a reference was provided for the development of new fruit and vegetable dicing machine.