MODELING OF POTATO MILL SEPARATION PROCESSES IN A DRUM SEPARATOR
In order to successfully enter Ukraine into the western markets, it is necessary to ensure the competitiveness of its products, which is achieved through the complex mechanization of technological processes, reduction of labor costs, increase in yield and quality of the products obtained. The most common method of mechanized harvesting of potatoes is the erosion of the tuber layer with its subsequent destruction and the separation of tubers from heap, which contains vegetable impurities, soil tubers and stones. The most difficult is the separation from the tubers of solid soil clumps and stones. Attempts have been made to overcome this problem by placing potatoes on well-sown sandy soils with the help of special agrotechnical techniques that reduce, to some extent, the number of tubers. However, such measures are local, not sufficiently reliable and significantly complicate technology. About 25% of the area occupied by potatoes is heavily clogged with stones, the size of which is close to the size of tubers, and about 40% of the planted potatoes are placed on soils prone to significant lumps. Accordingly, the purpose of the study was to conduct a comparative analysis of technologies and machines for potato harvesting, to develop a model of the process of separation of potato pile in a drum separator. The researches were carried out by technological and structural analysis of technologies and machines for potato harvesting. During the research, the methods of comparison and mathematical modeling of technological processes were used. The information base of the research was the works of Ukrainian and foreign scientists on technologies and machines for potato harvesting. On the basis of the comparative analysis of technologies and machines for potato harvesting, the main processes affecting the agrotechnical indices of the harvesting technique have been identified, a model of the process of separation of potato pile in a drum separator has been developed, which includes the following basic processes: model of sifting of a through fraction of soil from the top layer of pile; heap mixing model; model of destruction of soil lumps on the separator; model kinematic analysis of potato pile in a drum separator; model of sifting of the passable soil fraction from the bottom layer of the pile; model of damage to tubers and other structural and kinematic parameters of the working bodies of the drum separator.