Design And Optimization Analysis On High-branch Pruning Machine

Forestry is one of the most important agricultural industries of China, the plantation area of our country ranks first in the world, what's more, the total amount of forest resources continuous increase. Pruning trees lateral branch is an important part of forest tending project. Reasonable pruning can not only raise photosynthetic rate by improving air and light conditions of forests, but also effectively reduce pests, diseases and wind-snow disaster. However, the research on pruning machinery is still in the initial stage in our country. In our country, the pruning method is still relatively primitive, the pruning tools are also relatively simple, especially for the tall tree pruning. The research on pruning machinery started earlier in developed countries for the lateral branch that below eight meters, their pruning machinery is very complete and high in automation, but it's too expensive. For the lateral branch that above eight meters, the degree of automation is relatively low, so the machinery of the other countries can't meet the actual needs of Chinese forestry also.In order to fill the gap in the field of pruning mechanical and optimize simple pruning tools and solve the problem about the tall tree pruning, this thesis designs a new high-branch pruning machine. It mainly includes lifting system, rotation system, boom system, end effector, dynamic counterweight system and power systems. This thesis describes the whole process of design simulation and optimization analysis on high-branch pruning machine in detail. First of all, it includes the purpose and significance of this study, the design scheme of high-branch pruning machine and it's each part. Then the detailed design process of the machine and it's each part of, such as lifting system, boom system, end effector, dynamic counterweight system, rotation system, especially the parametric design of pivot locations of boom system luffing mechanism and the control method of the dynamic counterweight system. And then the simulation and analysis of the machine by using ADAMS, the finite element analysis of machine which includes Statics analysis and modal analysis.At last it built a full-size prototype and verified the performance of the prototype. The mechanical pruning height can up to fifteen meters, operating radius can up to six meters, pruning diameter can up to ten centimeters. It can preserve pruning wounds while pruning tree. It has a high degree of automation, simple operation, small turning radius, etc.