CFD Simulation and Optimization of a Pneumatic Wheat Seeding Device

To improve the performance of pneumatic wheat seeding devices with the goal of achieving pneumatic wheat seeding in soil conditions with high moisture content and heavy clay texture in rice-wheat rotation areas, a simulation optimization study of a pneumatic wheat seeding device was carried out using computational fluid dynamics. In this model, airflow was described by ANSYS Fluent software as a continuous compressible gas phase. The effects of accelerating air pressure, throat distance and nozzle diameter on the steady airflow velocity, the steady airflow length and the inlet 2 negative pressure of airflow field were studied, and a response surface analysis was applied to optimize the pneumatic wheat seeding device. The optimal parameter combination was achieved, which was an acceleration pressure of 700 kPa, a throat distance of 20 mm, a nozzle diameter of 7.2 mm and an acceleration pressure of 700 kPa. Comparative verification results showed that the steady airflow velocity, the steady airflow length and inlet 2 negative pressure of the optimized pneumatic wheat seeding device were 718 m/s, 182 mm and 0.49 kPa by simulations, which were 37%, 3% and 17% greater than those of the original device, respectively. This finding illustrates that the CFD model could describe the characteristics of airflow field well in a pneumatic seeding device and that the regression model for parameter optimization was reliable. Numerical simulation of the airflow field based on CFD approach can provide a theoretical basis for improving the operating performance of a pneumatic seeding device.