Design and Numerical Analysis of a Sorghum Reaper Machine

Rapid harvesting provides extra days to prepare the land and to plan the next crop earlier, especially for irrigation-based farming. The sorghum fields of Raya-Kobo and Azebo were chosen as study sites to better understand the effects of manual sorghum harvesting practices. The main examined drawbacks were low sorghum yield productivity owing to the lack of affordable modern machinery, inadequate control of repeated sorghum crop losses due to unexpected rains, labor crisis, and long harvesting process during the peak harvesting period. Hence, the aim of this study was to build a compatible sorghum reaper machine by using different methods. The initial approach involved measuring the diameter, length, and weight of seed-stage sorghum stalks by collecting samples from fields and recording the stalk’s tensile and shear strength values using a universal testing machine. The analytical designs of the reaper shafts were compared with a Finite Element Method using ANSYS; the results were accomplished with less than 5.5% errors. Particularly in the reciprocating system of the cutter bar, cranks and cutter bars were simulated using created MATLAB codes to reduce such catastrophic failures. As a result, the crank is in proper rotation, and the cutter bar is in exact translation. The forward speed in full load, Vm, 1.3 m/s, cutting speed, Vf, 1.82 m/s, and conveying speed, Vs, 3.076 m/s, were analyzed as significant points. Finally, if this reaper machine is built quickly, within 1 h, it will be able to harvest a 4.67 km2 sorghum field.