Parameter Optimization of Banana Crown-Cutting Machine using Combined Cutters

Banana crown cutting is an important part of banana harvesting. High quality of cutting incision can result in better economic value for the fruit. Mechanized cutting can reduce labour and production cost, and increase production efficiency. This article is aimed at solving the problem of poor cutting quality and high energy consumption of banana crown cutting machine. Cutting experiments of banana crown were carried out on an electronic universal testing machine by replacing the cutter components with different parameters. The effects of number of cutting sets, cutting speed, cutting edge angle of thick cutter, thickness of thick cutter, width of thick cutter and length of thin cutter on cutting force, cutting power consumption and cutting quality were studied. The optimum values of each parameter were obtained by experiments and analysis. The results are as follows: number of cutter sets is five groups, cutting speed is 60 mm/s, cutting edge angle of thick cutter is 16°, thickness and width of thick cutter are 2 mm and 12 mm respectively, and length of thin cutter is 13.07 mm.