Design and Laboratory Experiments of A Pneumatic Disc-Type Garlic Precision Seed-Metering Device

Highlights A novel pneumatic disc-type garlic precision seed-metering device was designed. Numerical simulations of the airflow field inside the seed-metering device were carried out with FLUENT Software. The diameter of the suction hole, the rotational speed of the seed plate, and negative pressure were used to evaluate the performance of the seed-metering device. The reasonableness of the optimal combination of parameters was verified by a bench experiment. Abstract. To solve the problem of high seed damage rate and low transplanting efficiency on traditional mechanical garlic seed-metering devices, this article designed and experimented with a novel pneumatic disc-type garlic precision seed-metering device by using theoretical calculations and orthogonal experiments. The overall structure of the device and the basic principles of each working stage were described. Numerical simulations of the airflow field inside the seed-metering device were conducted with FLUENT software to determine the optimal location of the negative pressure outlet and the number of suction holes. A three-factor, three-level Box-Behnken quadratic rotation orthogonal combination experiment was carried out to evaluate the performance of the seed-metering device in terms of the qualified index, miss index, and multiple index. The results showed that the optimal combination of parameters was a suction hole diameter of 10.03 mm, a rotational speed of 11.70 rpm, and a negative pressure of 7.02 kPa. With the optimal combination of parameters, the seeding qualified index was 88.04%, the miss index was 8.65%, and the multiple index was 3.31%, which met the design requirements. The results of the bench experiment were basically consistent with the results under the optimal combination of parameters. This design can provide a theoretical basis for garlic’s precision transplanting. Keywords: Airflow field, FLUENT, Garlic’s precision transplanting, Orthogonal combination experiment, Seed-metering device.