Design and Developing of Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Machine for sugarcane planting by using the hydraulic system

Abstract

The pruning of sugarcane leaves were usually done two months before harvesting in order to facilitate the human labors in harvesting and to avoid traditional burning of the sugarcane leaves. Generally, the sugarcane leaf pruning machine was used to harvest sugarcane for factory. However it couldn’t remove sugarcane leaves for planting because the seed bud was damaged about 60 – 70%. The objective of this research was the design and mechanism developing of Sugarcane Leaf Pruning for planting. So it applied the hydrostatic power transmission for the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller which could to move in a vertical direction by tow the small tractor 25 hp. It could to remove the sugarcane leaves form the ground up to 3.5 m. The rotation of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller was controlled by Fuzzy - based rotation control. The operation was entered the rotation which was the Input Setpoint into the controller. The controller will open a proportional valve that the hydraulic oil moves to drive the motor hydraulic which connected the rotation system and using the rotary encoder was feedback signal. It was tested with the LK92-11, Khon Kaen 3, Uthong 84-12, K95-84 and Kamphaeng Saen 01-12 sugarcane cultivars which had 11 years old in Sikhio district, Nakhon Ratchasima province and 2.31 – 2.93 m for the height of sugarcane. The experiments were conducted at a forward speeds of 2.09 km h^-1, a linear velocity of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller of 0.5 m s^-1 and upward direction of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Roller. The experimental results showed that the average damage of seed bud was 1.28%, the average damage of stalk was 3.41%, 1.88 rai per hour for the performance, 2.36 liter per rai for the fuel consumption and the average germination percentage of sugarcane was 68.57%. The average damage of seed bud, stalk and germination percentage were not significantly different as compared to the human labors. The results of controller showed that the fuzzy based control was efficiently controlled the stable oscillatory rotation for a pruning of sugarcane leaves. Fuzzy-based controller had high speed and accuracy for a pruning of sugarcane leaves although it gave a few overshoot. The cost of the Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Machine was 134,000 baht, 300 baht per rai for the earnings of Sugarcane Leaf Pruning and 8 hours per day for working. So the Break Even point was 175.61 rais.