TESTING AND ANALYSIS OF THE EXTRACTOR OF A SUGARCANE CHOPPER HARVESTER

Performance tests were carried out on the primary extractor of a Chenhan 4GQ-130 sugarcane chopper harvester to improve the harvesting quality, increase the economic benefits, and reduce the harvesting cost. The tests were designed to identify the relationships of three performance indexes (impurity rate, cane loss, and power consumption) to the main influencing factors (fan speed, air speed, and feeding rate of sugarcane). Single-factor tests showed that fan speed was positively correlated with air speed and pressure. The high feeding rate of 3 kg s(-1) had a higher impurity rate than the low feeding rate of 2 kg s(-1). The average power consumption was higher at the high feeding rate than at the low feeding rate. However, the results of a 2 x 3 factorial experiment showed that feeding rate did not have significant effects on the impurity rate, cane loss, and power consumption (p > 0.1). It also showed that fan speed had no significant effect on the impurity rate (p > 0.1). However, at a significance level of alpha = 0.05, fan speed had a highly significant influence on cane loss and power consumption (p < 0.01). Compared to the feeding rate, the effect of fan speed on each performance index was more significant. Fan speed was important for the impurity rate, cane loss, and power consumption. The interaction of feeding rate and fan speed was not significant. Therefore, the optimal fan speed should be determined for a suitable feeding rate, air speed, and air pressure, which determines the extractors' optimal performance.