DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF SOIL IMPURITIES REMOVING APPARATUS FOR POTATO

Aiming at the problem that contain more soil impurities of potato post-harvest, which affects subsequent deep processing, an apparatus for removing soil impurities from potato was developed. The whole structure is mainly composed of frame, feeding port, flexible rubber finger conveying mechanism, slender filament rotary brushing mechanism, discharging port and the like. The research and analysis determined that the main parameters influencing the soil impurities removal performance were the movement speed of conveying mechanism, the movement speed of brushing mechanism and the clearance between conveying mechanism and brushing mechanism (hereinafter referred to as the mechanism clearance). Taking the main influencing parameters as test factors, and the soil impurities removal rate and potato damage rate as indexes, the orthogonal test with three factors and three levels was carried out. The optimal parameter combination was obtained as follows: the movement speed of conveying mechanism was 0.35m/s, the movement speed of brushing mechanism was 0.40m/s, and the mechanism clearance was 55mm. At this time, the average soil impurities removal rate was 87.18%, and the potato average damage rate was 1.95%, which met the requirements of potato cleaning operation.