International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

Removal of the haulm from the heads of sugar beet to the roots during their harvesting (cutting the main mass) or separation of its residues (when finishing the heads) is a complex technological process associated with either a significant loss of sugar-bearing mass (low cut), or not complete removal of residues (high cut), which significantly degrades the quality of root crops. Therefore, ways to find a complete removal of haulm and its residues from the heads of root crops require research and development of such devices capable of performing this process qualitatively. However, first it is necessary to determine theoretically and experimentally the basic initial conditions under which high quality indicators will be achieved, and losses of sugar-bearing mass during cutting the haulm will be minimal, with the remaining haulm being as small as possible (or they will be absent at all). This paper theoretically and experimentally investigates and determines the loss of sugar mass and remnants of the bud on the heads of sugar beet roots during the separation of the bud and its remnants. It is established that in the interval of working heights of a cut which is equal to 20 … 60 mm deviation of theoretical calculations from experimental does not exceed on the average 1%.

There are considered contemporary trends in the improvement of the technological process for the preparation of sugar beet roots for digging out and directions of the development of the designs of the working tools for the removal of the tops. Analysis of contemporary machines has been carried out according to the indicators of their quality, energy consumption and efficiency of the technological process. Tasks have been determined for creating new working tools. It is noted that at the current stage of development of the beet top removing machines the efficiency and quality problems of the top separation process are solved by increasing the number of operations, which is an energy-consuming, material-intensive and costly way to improve the technological process and the working tools. And, as a consequence, it is necessary to look for technical solutions, technologically allowing operations required only for the preparation of the root crops to be harvested. Therefore, further research should be conducted in the direction of creating a working tool that combines good tracing of the heads by cleaners with low-energy intensity of the cutting tools.