LONGITUDINAL COMPRESSING AND SHEARING PROPERTIES OF SILAGE CORN STALK IN NORTH CHINA PLAIN

During silage harvesting, silage corn stalk is compressed by a feeding device and fed into the shearing device to be sheared into qualified segments to make silage fermentation easier. To optimize the working quality of the existing silage harvester and reduce energy consumption, it’s necessary to make a comprehensive analysis of the longitudinal compressing and shearing properties of the silage corn stalks and get a reliable shearing model. According to the different structural properties of the silage corn stalks, the main factors affecting the shearing energy consumption and their levels were obtained by compressing and shearing tests on internodes and nodes in this paper. The results of three-level and three-factor experiments showed that the overall shearing energy consumption for nodes was much higher than that for internodes. Compressing the silage corn stalk to some extent before shearing at the loading direction of 0° and lower shearing speed was beneficial to saving energy during the process of shearing off the silage corn stalk. The reduced energy requirements of the silage corn stalk could be exploited advantageously to present new reference for the feeding and cutting mechanisms of silage harvester. The research results can provide a reference for silage corn harvesting.

First Application of Hybrid Bit Technology to Optimize Drilling Through S Shape Directional Section with High Chert Content in UAE Land Operations

This paper highlights the solution, execution, and evaluation of the first 12.25″ application of hybrid bit on rotary steerable system in S-Shape directional application to drill interbedded formations with up to 25 % chert content in UAE land operations. The main challenge that the solution overcame is to drill through the hard chert layers while avoiding trips due to PDC bit damage nor drilling hour's limitation of TCI bit while improving the overall ROP and achieving the directional requirement. The solution package has demonstrated a superior ROP over rollercone bits, as well as improved PDC cutter durability and lower reactive torque leading to better steerability and stability which will be detailed in this paper. A significant contributor to such success was utilizing a new hybrid bit technology which incorporates the dual cutting mechanisms of both polycrystalline Diamond Compact (PDC) and rollercone bits. This allows a more efficient drilling by bringing the durability of the crushing action of rollercone to drill through hard interbedded lithology and the effectiveness of the shearing action of PDC cutters to improve ROP without sacrificing the toughness of the cutting structure edge. The proposed solution in combined with continues proportional rotary steering system managed to drill 4,670 ft through heterogeneous formation with chert nodules, with an average ROP of 38.29 ft\hr improving ROP by 15% and eliminating extra trips of utilizing roller cone bits to be able to drill though the chert nodules and avoid the PDC bit damage. Leading reduction in cost per foot by 35 %. Additionally, the hybrid bit exceed the expectation achieving 878 thousand of revolutions, with effective bearing and with the drilling cutting structure in a very good condition. Furthermore, the directional objectives were met with high quality directional drilling avoiding wellbore tortuosity. Such success was established through application analysis, specific formations drilling roadmaps and optimized drilling parameters in order to improve the overall run efficiency. The combination of roller cone and PDC elements in a hybrid bit designed to deliver better efficiency and torque stability significantly increased performance drilling the section in one single run, proven that heterogeneous formations can be drill.

Analytical Compliance Equations of Generalized Elliptical-Arc-Beam Spherical Flexure Hinges for 3D Elliptical Vibration-Assisted Cutting Mechanisms

Elliptical vibration-assisted cutting technology has been widely applied in complicated functional micro-structured surface texturing. Elliptical-arc-beam spherical flexure hinges have promising applications in the design of 3D elliptical vibration-assisted cutting mechanisms due to their high motion accuracy and large motion ranges. Analytical compliance matrix formulation of flexure hinges is the basis for achieving high-precision positioning performance of these mechanisms, but few studies focus on this topic. In this paper, analytical compliance equations of spatial elliptic-arc-beam spherical flexure hinges are derived, offering a convenient tool for analysis at early stages of mechanism design. The mechanical model of a generalized flexure hinge is firstly established based on Castigliano's Second Theorem. By introducing the eccentric angle as the integral variable, the compliance matrix of the elliptical-arc-beam spherical flexure hinge is formulated. Finite element analysis is carried out to verify the accuracy of the derived analytical compliance matrix. The compliance factors calculated by the analytical equations agree well with those solved in the finite element analysis for the maximum error; average relative error and relative standard deviation are 8.25%, 1.83% and 1.78%, respectively. This work lays the foundations for the design and modeling of 3D elliptical vibration-assisted cutting mechanisms based on elliptical-arc-beam spherical flexure hinges.

Investigation on the size effect in micro end milling considering the cutting edge radius and the workpiece material

Previous research has found that the peripheral and end cutting edges of the cutter had different cutting mechanisms in the micro end cutting process considering the size effect. This investigation is a further study on this point considering the cutting edge radius of the cutter and the material of the workpiece based on the methods of finite element simulation and the micro end cutting experiment. This study adopts a combination of simulation and experiment research methods and the cutting edge radius and the workpiece material as two variables. Considering the cutting mechanisms of the peripheral cutting edge and the end cutting edge are different, the peripheral cutting edge and the end cutting edge are studied respectively. Meanwhile, the minimum undeformed chip thickness (MUCT) value is determined in three ways, chip morphology, cutting force, and surface roughness, so the final result obtained by comparing three kinds of results has a very important reference value. Not only are the chip morphology obtained by finite element simulation and the surface roughness obtained by the micro end cutting experiment used to identify the MUCT value, but also the cutting force. The simulation and experimental results show that the cutting force can be used to identify the MUCT value for the peripheral cutting edge, but it cannot be used for the end cutting edge. The MUCT value increases with the increase of the cutting edge radius, no matter which process it is. The material property has some effects on the MUCT value; even the cutting parameters and the cutting edge radius remain unchanged for the peripheral cutting edge. However, the material property has no effect on the MUCT value for the end cutting edge. In this study, the influence of important variables on MUCT is studied as much as possible to reflect a real application situation.

Experimental validation of the predicted peak cutting force for seafloor polymetallic sulfide

With the gradual reduction of mineral resources, marine mining has increasingly been developed as a method of exploiting resources. However, the cutting efficiency of submarine mineral deposits requires additional improvement. Investigating the preferable cutting efficiency in marine mining, it is important to establish a theoretical model of predicting the peak cutting force for polymetallic sulfide. The polymetallic sulfide was taken from the floor of the Indian Ocean and maintained at constant temperature and humidity conditions during transportation. In the paper, some experiments were conducted to study the physicomechanical properties of polymetallic sulfide. And the cutting experiments were conducted to investigate the cutting force at room temperature and atmosphere pressure, preliminarily. Then, based on maximum tensile stress theory, the theoretical equation of predicting the peak cutting force was derived, and an improved high-precision theoretical model was established. The reliability and accuracy of this model was verified using the experimental data. Based on the improved theoretical model, the brittleness index and the cutting depth, which influenced the peak cutting force, were investigated. Results show that the established model improved the accuracy of predictions. The peak cutting force decreased with the increase of the brittleness index, but it increased with the increase of the depth, which followed the power-law pattern. The power-law coefficient was generally at 1-2. The experiments verified that this improved theoretical model and the related conclusions can predict the peak cutting force. It is significant for the design and study of conical picks and cutting mechanisms in marine mining.