Optimization and Experiment on Key Parameters of Harvester for Auricularia auricula

The Auricularia auricula harvester has low harvesting productivity, low qualification rate, and high breakage rate, and the lack of research on key operating parameters has become a bottleneck restricting the large-scale development industry. In view of the difficulty of industrialization and promotion of Auricularia auricula harvesting equipment, this paper combines the research on the physical properties of Auricularia auricula , adopts a quadratic orthogonal rotation combination design test and response surface analysis method to carry out the optimization and test of the key parameters of the harvesting equipment of Auricularia auricula , including the speed of the tray fungus stick ( A ), the frequency of the harvesting knife ( B ), and the distance of the harvesting knife ( C ). Design-Expert software was used to analyse the data and investigate the influence of each parameter and its interaction on the harvesting productivity, qualified rate, and breakage rate. The test results show that the factors affecting the harvesting productivity are in order: ( A ) > ( B ) > ( C ); the factors affecting the harvest qualification rate are in order: ( C ) > ( B ) > ( A ); and the factors affecting the harvesting damage rate are in order: ( C ) > ( B ) > ( A ). The multi-objective optimization results show that the optimal parameter combination of the key parameters of the Auricularia auricula harvesting equipment operation is that the tray speed is 308.17 r/min, the harvesting knife frequency is 10.78 Hz, the spacing between the harvesting knives is 84.67 mm, the productivity is 363 bags/h, the pass rate is 94.26%, and the breakage rate is 2.40%. The field production application under this optimized parameter combination shows that the productivity of the Auricularia auricula mechanized harvester is 346 bars/h, the qualified rate is 91.43%, and the breakage rate is 3.19%. This study can provide a reference for improving the quality of Auricularia auricula harvesting equipment.