Effect of Cutting Angle and Knives Type on Some Operational Characteristics for a Locally Manufactured Palm Pruning Motorized Vibration Cutter

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of cutting angles and knife type on some operations characteristics for a locally palm pruning motorizedvibration cutter. An equipment was fabricated to use a vibration motion to operate the cutting knife to cut the base of date palm fronds around the date palm tree trunk .Three cutting angles included 45°,60°and 90° with three locally manufactured knives included A,B and C types were used in this study. Time of cutting one frond, time of cutting three rows of fronds, level of cutting difference, productivity and efficiency was measured in this experiment. Randomized Complete block design with three replication was used in this experiment. Least significant differences (L.S.D.) under 0.05 level was used to compare the mean of treatment. The results can be summarized as follow: 45° cutting angle gave a lower one frond cutting time ,three rows cutting time and differences of surface cutting level amounted to 2.65 sec. 1.74 min. ,5.28 mm .45° and 60° cutting angle got higher productivity stood 8.01 palm /h for both angles . Type (B) knife got lowest cutting time stood 3.22 sec. and higher productivity stood 8.80 palm /h ,while type A knife got a lowest ofthree rows of fronds and differences of surface cutting level stood 1.68 min.,5.28 mm. also type A knife got higher efficiency amounted to 87.67%. The interaction between cutting angle and knife type has significant effect on all properties .Using vibration motorizedcutter forcutting date palm fronds successfully done.