Structure Design and Simulation Test of Water Jet Grassland Root-Cutting Machine

Abstract

Root-cutting is one of the effective methods to improve degraded grassland. It mainly increases the contact area between roots and oxygen by cutting off the transverse roots of vegetation inside the soil, and thus achieve the purpose of restoring growth. However, the hanging cutter head root-cutting method commonly used at present has the problems of large cutting resistance and high soil disturbance rate during operation. Therefore, a water jet grassland root-cutting machine is designed to improve the shortcomings of the previous method. This method does not need to go deep into the soil and is not affected by the internal resistance of the soil, and the water flow has a positive recovery effect on the grassland, paying more attention to the environmental awareness of the grassland. For the design of this machine, the structure and working principle of it is overall structure and key components are analyzed. The motion attitude of the profiling mechanism was analyzed by modified D-H (MDH) method. The dynamic model of the root-cutting machine and the obstacle avoidance model of the profiling mechanism were established by Lagrange function. With the help of MATLAB/Simulink components, the operation process of the root-cutting machine in different ground was simulated. Results showed: In the process of root-cutting operation, the water jet grassland root-cutting machine has a good adaptability in sinusoidal ground and irregular smooth ground. In the ground environment of sharp mutation, it can satisfy the adaptability to the ground through the obstacle avoidance operation of the profiling mechanism. The water jet grassland root-cutting machine designed in this paper can improve the efficiency of grassland restoration and meet the stability requirements of operation in different terrains.INDEX TERMS Dynamics, profiling mechanism, root-cutting machine, structural design, SimMechanics.