Checking performance of disc-belt flax pulling apparatus

Pulling devices are used to pull flax stalks from the soil during mechanized harvesting of fibre flax. Some of them are belt and belt-disc pulling devices, in which the pulling belts, which work as belt transmissions, stretch during operation and require periodic tightening, and replacement when worn. In addition, this design of pulling apparatuses is too material-intensive. This is due to the use of pulleys, tension and support rollers, complex drive. We offer a new design of the disc-belt pulling apparatus. In it, the drive is carried out directly on the pulling discs, and the pulling belts press the flax stalks to the surface of the pulling discs. That is, the belt does not transmit the torque from the driving to the driven pulleys, which means that it stretches less during operation. The pulling assembly contains fewer parts, so the proposed disk-belt flax pulling apparatus is less material-intensive compared to analogues. The patented design of the disc-belt flax pulling apparatus will increase the durability of the gleaning belts and reduce the material capacity of the flax gleaning machine. An experimental installation was made and its operability was tested in field conditions. The influence of the speed mode indicator (the ratio of the forward speed of the installation across the field to the circular speed of rotation of the pulling disk) of the disc-belt pulling apparatus on the purity of pulling and seed loss was determined. The results of the experimental studies confirmed the workability of the proposed design of the disc-belt pulling section. It was established that with an increase in the speed mode indicator from 0.5 to 1, the purity of pulling flax stalks changed from 99.7% to 98.8%, and the loss of seeds – from 0.7% to 2.0%. This gives reason to assert that the pulling apparatus meets the agrotechnical requirements for flax-harvesting equipment.