Impact Cutting Behaviour of Sorghum Stalk using a Flail-Cutter-a Mathematical Model and its Experimental Verification

A mathematical model was developed to estimate the impact cutting energy and power requirement using crop and machine parameters when harvesting forage crops by flail-type cutters. Laboratory experiments were conducted to examine the validity of the model for cutting forage sorghum stalk by flails with different knife parameters. The predicted values of the cutting energy and power requirements at different knife and operational parameters were found to be comparable with those obtained from laboratory investigations at the cutting speed range of 20-60 m s^-1 in which the flail knives are operated for harvesting different types of thickand thin-stemmed forage crops.