Abstract
Small combine with self-feeding thresher, which has chain conveyor feeding straw along the cylinder axis and of which cylinder beats the ear part of straw, has many features. We measured the power requirements of the self-feeding thresher and obtained the following power requirement characteristics of it.
(1) Observing the cylinder torque fluctuation when one sheaf was fed, it was found that the threshing action was finished before one half of cylinder length.
(2) The threshing power requirement for the continuous feeding was about 70% of the sheaf feeding. It is favourable to feed continuously for the combine.
(3) When one sheaf of green rice was fed, cylinder power requirement was relatively high. It rated to 60% of the total power input.
(4) Power loss was considerably high, because of the slippage of V-belts.
(5) Cylinder power requirement for dried rice was about 1/2 of for green rice.
(6) The relations between feed rate and power requirement were linear for both dried and green rice.
(7) For the threshing of one sheaf of green rice with the increases of the sheaf weight and the revolution of cylinder, the cylinder power requirements largely increased; but for the dried rice they did not so largely increased.
