Design and Experimental Analysis of Full-Automatic Virus-Free Seedcane Seed-Metering Device

Virus-free seedcane planting technology is one of the main technical measures for improving the unit-yield level and quality of sugarcane. To solve the defects of domestic sugarcane planting operation, including low level of mechanization, adoption of traditional semi-automatic real-time cutter type dual-bud seed stem, manual operation of seed extraction and feeding, low operation efficiency, high labor intensity, and unstable planting quality, a hydraulic seed-metering device longitudinally vibrating for arranging and horizontally provided with trough belt for seed feeding for virus-free seedcane is designed in this paper. Solid Edge ST5 is adopted to build a 3D model of the device for motion simulation, an experimental prototype is manufactured for field trial, multifactorial experiment is designed to collect data, and SPSS is adopted for statistical analysis. Analysis of the contribution of the factors to the target value impact shows that the degree of contribution of the center distance of slot is larger than that of the metering frequency, and that of the metering frequency is larger than that of the forward velocity of the engine. Optimization of regression equations shows that in the case that the forward velocity of the engine is x1 =0.4m/s, the metering frequency is x2=2 seed/s, and in the case that the length of the driving belt is x3=1.5m, the acceptability of row spacing is up to 89.6%, and the variable coefficient of row spacing is 5.0. It has been proved that the difference between the acceptability of row spacing and the result of theoretical analysis is not larger than 10%, which meets the design requirements.