The design of non-contact automatic shell cutting machine of chestnut and the investigation of its effect by means of chestnut shelling experiment

摘要

The shelling operation has become the greatest problem and poses a bottleneck to the chestnut processing industry in China. The shell cutting process is one of the important procedures in the shelling operation in chestnut processing. To overcome the problems that occurred during chestnut shell cutting, a non-contact automatic shell cutting machine was designed. Non-contact shell cutting machine of chestnut was consisted by the vibration feeder, V-shaped belt for chestnut positioning and conveying, motor drive system, laser generator, mirrors for laser reflection and focusing, control panel et al. The effects of two independent parameters power intensity of laser and velocity of conveyor on chestnut shelling rate were investigated using orthogonal design and range analysis. The results indicated that both of the power intensity of laser and the velocity of conveyor had significant effect on the cutting performance of non-contact automatic shell cutting machine. The results also showed that the chestnut shelling rate increased with increasing of the laser power or decreased with increasing of the velocity of chestnut conveyor. However, the effect of the power intensity of laser on chestnut shelling rate was more distinct than velocity of conveyor. Considering the results analysis and the productivity, 80 W and 0.12 m/s was chosen as the optimum operating parameters. The economic analysis indicated that compared to the manual processing the non-contact automatic shell cutting machine had obvious economic advantages.