Design and Testing of a Pleurotus pulmonarius Stick Cutting Machine

Based on the cultivation environment and material parameters of Pleurotus pulmonarius sticks, a P. pulmonarius stick cutting machine is designed to solve the problem of directly realizing the cutting of P. pulmonarius sticks for a net-shaped mushroom stick cultivation layer frame. The machine consists of three parts: a traveling trolley, an XYZ three-axis moving mechanism, and a clamping and cutting mechanism. Based on the force analysis of the clamping and cutting mechanism and the P. pulmonarius sticks, the key components were designed and selected. A prototype was constructed, and several cutting tests were conducted, with the cutting speed, number of cutting circles, and depth of the cut as the main factors. The success rate of cutting, the roundness of the cut, and the degree of loss in terms of the cutout substrate, were used as the performance indicators. An optimized design, based on orthogonal testing, was employed to determine the optimal parameter combinations for the cutting process. The optimal parameters were found to be a cutting speed of 376.3 r/min, 5.4 cutting circles, and a cutting depth of 4 mm. Finally, a validation test was carried out on the machine, and the results show that under the same parameter conditions, the success rate of cutting was 86.6%, the roundness of the cut was 0.235, and the degree of loss in terms of the cutout substrate was 0.851%, which is consistent with the optimization results. This study provides a reference, including a practical reference, for the design and development of a machine to realize the cutting of P. pulmonarius sticks for a cultivation layer frame.