Row Insensitive Biomass Harvesting Header
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current harvesting technologies for tall, stalky plants like sweet sorghum are inefficient due to their row sensitivity, short annual duty cycles, and inability to preserve plant juices, leading to juice loss and heat generation during storage.
Innovation Solution
A row-insensitive harvesting system that cuts and billets multiple stalks simultaneously across the width of the harvester, using a crop cutting header with rotating cutter drums and transfer rollers to compact and orient the stalks for uniform cutting into billets, while maintaining juice integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Duration of action of stationary object
If conventional sugarcane harvesters are used for harvesting sorghum, then the duty cycle is extended, but the harvesting speed decreases due to row sensitivity requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The header is divided into multiple independent cutting units (cutter bars with knives) that can simultaneously cut stalks at different positions across the width without requiring row alignment. This segmentation allows the harvester to process multiple rows in parallel, maintaining high duty cycle while increasing harvesting speed by eliminating the sequential row-by-row processing limitation of conventional sugarcane harvesters
Solution Approach 2:
The header design combines the continuous cutting capability of sugarcane harvesters with the row-insensitive multi-position cutting ability of forage harvesters. The universal header can handle both row-planting and non-row-planting configurations, allowing the machine to maintain extended duty cycle while achieving higher productivity through flexible, position-independent cutting across the full width
2Quantity of substance
If stalks are chopped into small bits for storage, then storage capacity increases, but juice loss and heat generation increase
Solution Approach 1:
The billeting system provides different processing qualities at different stages: initial cutting at the header creates uniform billets that maintain structural integrity and juice content, while thebilleting chamber provides controlled containment. This local quality differentiation allows the system to achieve efficient storage with minimal juice loss by maintaining appropriate billet size and structure throughout the storage process, rather than uniformly chopping all material to small particles
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary cutting into uniform billets at the header before storage, rather than chopping into small bits. This preliminary action creates optimally sized billets that are easy to store and handle while preserving juice content. The billets are then conveyed and contained in the billeting chamber, preventing juice loss that would occur with finer chopping, thus achieving both storage capacity and juice preservation
3Productivity
If forage harvesters are used to cut high volume crop material, then harvesting capacity increases, but the cutter is not adapted for producing uniform billets
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses a dynamic combination of a high-capacity forage harvester header for initial cutting and a controlled billeting chamber for uniform billet formation. The header provides high harvesting capacity by processing large volumes of crop material, while the billeting chamber dynamically adjusts to contain and guide the cut material, ensuring uniform billet production. This dynamic system integration resolves the contradiction by allowing each component to optimize its function
Solution Approach 2:
The billeting chamber acts as an intermediary between the high-capacity forage harvester header and the final billet output. It receives the cut crop material from the header, provides controlled containment and guidance, and facilitates uniform billet formation. This intermediary component allows the system to maintain high harvesting capacity while achieving precise billet uniformity, as the chamber mediates between the high-volume input and the precision output requirements
Data Source
AI summary
A harvesting system and method providing a row insensitive plant cutting and gathering capability, suitable for harvesting tall, stalky plants such as sweet sorghum, cane, and the like, in high volume, which also billet cuts the harvested plants. Multiple plants are cut simultaneously on a continuous basis at any locations across a header of the system, and the cut plants are gathered into a continuous overlapping flow having a vertical extent or thickness of several stalks or canes and their associated foliage. The flow is then vertically compacted into a mat of reduced thickness while being conveyed into a billet cutter, which cuts the stalks or canes into billets of a desired length and discharges the billets to a desired location, all while the harvester is moving through a field harvesting. The system can be incorporated into a conventional sugarcane harvester in place of conventional base cutters and row dividers.