CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

1.1 Background and justification

Mechanized agriculture is the process of using agricultural machinery to mechanize

the works of agriculture which greatly increases farm works productivity. In recent
times use of machinery has replaced many farm works which are formerly done by
manual labor or by farming live stocks such as horses, oxen and mules.

The history of machinery harvesting had passed several hundreds of years. In 1826 in
Scotland, the inventor Patrick Bell designed a reaper machine that uses scissors
principle of plant cutting. The Bell machine was pushed by horses. After about nine
years in 1835 in United States Hiram Moore built the first combine harvester, which
was capable of reaping, winnowing and threshing cereal grain. Moore’s combine
harvester was pulled by 20 horses fully handed by farm hands. At about 1843 John
Ridley and others in Australia develop a stripper which was based on Gallic stripper.
This stripper only gathered heads leaving stems of crops in the fields. This machine
requires less power as compared to earlier. In 1885 victor Mckay produced a refined
combine harvester with sunshine header.

At the beginning of 20th century in 1911, Holt manufacturing company of California

produced a self-propelled harvester. In 1923 in Australia self-propelled harvester with
sunshine auto header was patented. At the time 1930, the world’s economy collapsed
which reduces agricultural equipment purchases and due to reason people highly
retained the traditional method of harvesting.

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Tractor driven combines became common after World War II as many farmers began
to use tractors. A significance advance in the design of combines rotary design which
were first introduced by Sperry-new Holland in 1975.

In about 1980’s Electromechanics were introduced to measure threshing efficiency.

This new instrumentation allowed operators to obtain better grain yield by optimizing
ground speed and other working parameters.

When coming to our country, Ethiopia the base of economy is agriculture accounting
46.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), 83.9% exports and 80% of total employment
but there is a big problem with using mechanization. Still the country’s agriculture is
characterized by the use of traditional farming tools with mainly human and animal
power sources and most crops are harvested by manually using sickles.

In Ethiopia, mechanization began to be applied during the imperial period. The use of
modern tractors, combine harvesters and related heavy machineries is still very
limited in Ethiopia. The Nazareth Tractor Factory, with its limited capacity, is the
only company that assembles tractors in the country. On the other hand, a rising trend
in the import of tractors and harvesters is being observed as of recent years. Small-
scale farmers on their part are looking more into the use of small mechanically-
powered equipment both for crop production and post-harvest activities. Thus, great
opportunities lie in the importation, assembly, manufacture and distribution of
agricultural heavy machineries as well as of small-powered equipment such as
irrigation pumps, sprayers, mowers, bailers, sellers, threshers, flour mills, powered
fishing boats, etc.

1.2 Purpose of the study

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The main objective of our study is to design a crop harvesting machine to small
holders.

Within the main objective there are many specific objectives such as:

 To increase productivity and economic level of the country

 To decrease human’s agony due to much time on labor work
 Finally to improve human’s way of life

1.3 Statement of problem

It is well known that agricultural activity is the main body of Ethiopians starting from
ancient time up to now. But there are many problems which cause to agony of the
people and loose of productivity. One of the problems among those is harvesting.
Now a time families in rural areas have no one who helps them to harvest during
harvesting time because all their sons and daughters are civil servants, self-employees
or at least students who pass their time at school.The amount of labour during
harvesting season are the serious problem. This shortage of labour during harvesting
causes great losses to the farmers when the weather is rainy during harvesting season.

Because of these reasons when the harvesting is delayed, the crop will deteriorate and
productivity will decrease. It is therefore, essential to adopt the mechanical methods
so that farmers could perform harvesting operation timeliness in the ensured time. To
overcome this problem many agricultural mechanization has been done. Such as
starting from imperial,to agricultural mechanization of Derg era, the federal
agricultural mechanization center, the Oromia agricultural research institute
agricultural mechanization process , the Amhara agricultural mechanization food
science research directorate, the Tigrai regional state rural promotion center and the
Ethio- Germany agricultural further training center.

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These institutes try to introduce mechanization agriculture in some extent, but due to
the court and distribution limitation small holders are unable to use.

As a mechanical engineer we are going to eradicate these problems by designing a

harvesting machine to small holders.

1.4 Significance of the study

The present study is to address specific problems occurred during crops seed
harvesting. The study will be helpful to make harvesting crop seeds to be economical,
qualitative and shares world market. It will change the traditional way of harvesting
system to a technological way, our traditional harvesting system was by traditional
equipment’s, so this ways of harvesting system wastes time, man power and also
money, so this thing affects the profitability of the farmer’s. As we all know our
economy bases are the farmers, so the profitability of these farmers directly affects the
economic development of our country. But if we proceed to the new machine it will
save man power, money and time, so that our general objectives will fulfill through
time.

Therefore the main beneficiaries from this project are farmers, but indirectly this
project benefits all the societies in the country by increasing the agro economics
capacity and leads to prosperity of the country.

1.5 scope of the project

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Our design research covers studying harvesting problem by taking samples to collect
data. Then this data is presented, analyzed and discuss the result. Finally we designed
a machine that will solve the problem.

CHAPTER TWO

Review of related literature

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This chapter concerns with research works that was done in the past by various
investigations on the performance , the mechanization of harvesting operations which
are beneficial to lower the cost of harvesting, crop loss, crop production cost and to
increase crop productions.

2.1 Definition

Harvesting is the process of gathering matured crop from the field. It includes cutting,
luring, gathering, transporting, stacking the cut crop. .Harvesting is carried out by
grasping the cereal crops There are two methods of harvesting being used plants in
one hand and cutting them with the sickle near the base of the plant. The cut plants are
placed in piles on the ground. In some parts of Ethiopia, such as in Gojjam province,
the farmer when harvesting the cereal crops, crouches and cuts the plants near the soil
surface. This is done especially when the cereal crops plants are short.These are:

I. Traditional harvesting: is a manual harvesting method which

involves using sickles or spade. This method consume more time in
field.
II. Mechanical harvesting: is a motor harvesting method which involves
using machine. The use of harvesting machine can help to harvest at
proper times of crop maturity and it reduces field harvesting time.

2.1.1 Different types of mechanical harvesting tools

i. Serrated blade sickle; It has a serrated curved blade and a wooden handle. The
handle of improved sickle has a bend at the rear for better grip and to avoid hand
injury during operation.

ii. Reapers; Reapers are used for harvesting of crops mostly at ground level. It
consists of crop-row divider, cutter bar assembly, feeding and conveying devices.

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iii. Strippers; the design of a tractor front mounted stripper is available for collection

of matured grass seeds from the seed crops. It consists of a reel having helical
rubber bats which beat the grass over a sweeping surface where the ripened
seeds get detached and the seeds are collected in the seed box.

Iv. Diggers; The design of groundnut and potato diggers of animal drawn and tractor
operated types are available. The digging unit consists of V -shaped or straight
blade and 1ifter rods are attached behind the share. These lifter rods are spaced
to allow the clods and residual material to drop while operating the implement.
The plant along with pods/tubers is collected manually.

v. Combines; various designs of combine harvester having 2 to 6 m long cutter bar are

available. The function of a combine harvester is to cut, thresh, winnow and

clean grain/seed. It consists of header unit, threshing unit, separation unit,
cleaning unit and grain collection unit.

vi. Mower; One of the farm machineries used in agriculture field is rotary mowers.

These mowers shear plant materials as a result of high-speed impact of a knife or

hammer without need for a shear bar. The rotor may be a single blade rotating in
a horizontal plan or a series of knife-tipped arms rotating in vertical planes.
These rotary machines have almost completely replaced cutter bar mowers for
weed mowing, brush cutting, and plant residue chopping

2.2 History

2.2.1 Study on design and develop a reaper harvesting

There are many literature which were done on design of reaper harvesting.

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Devani and Pandey (1885) designed and developed a vertical conveyor belt for
harvesting wheat crop. They finalized that field capacity achieved with 1.6m wide
unit was 0.269 ha/h and for 2.09 m wide unit was 0.337 ha/h. the cost of operation
with tractors and power tiller model were low as compared to manual method by 20 to
30%.

El-Sahrigi et.al.(1992) developed a front mounted reaper. The design feature included
a flat best mechanism covering the crop to the side of the machine, improve cutter bar
star wheel assembly to minimize clogging, a bevel gear drive for power transmission,
a robust frame, a header provide design that will not dig in to the soil and provision to
convert flat best conveyor drives to obtain without frame modification.

J Prasad et al(2001-2002) development of self-propelled riding type reaper

windrowers powered powered by small diesel engine. The results of test conducted
for variety of wheat crop, the min values of plant height, effective field capacity, fuel
consumption and total machine loss where 846 cm 0.336 ha/h, 1.35 and 0.610
respectively.

D. N Sharma and Mukesh(2010) they studied on the design of self-propelled vertical

conveyor reapers and tractor operated vertical conveyor reaper harvesting machine.

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 a, tractor operated vertical conveyor reaper b,self propelled vertical conveyor reaper

Figure 1 vertical conveyor reapers

2.2.2 Study on comparative field performance of different reaper

machines

El.sharabary (1997) compare four different machines (small combine harvester,

power reaper, self-propelled mower and rear mounted mower) in wheat and rice fields
he found the following..

1. the minimum grain loss of 1.6% was obtained under small combine harvester
2. the highest efficiency of 78.04% was obtained under self-propelled mower
3. the highest field capacity of 1.64 fed/h was obtained under tractor mower
reaper
4. harvesting by self-propelled mower plus threshing with stationary thresher
recorded minimum energy of 25.38 wk/fed

2.2.3 Study on tested and evaluated field performance of reaper machine

Person (1993) designed, built and tested a rotary counter shear wear. It consisted of
two concentric counter rotating disks. Results of test showed that increase of forward
speed will improve cutting performance. Cutting speed with thus type of rotor is less
than other type of rotary disk cutter filled experiment on this machine showed that the
power consumption was less than 1.8 kw/m of cutting width. The rotary counter shear
mover worked satisfactorily in fine crops tangled crops and crops mixed with residue.

Mahrous(1995) tested and evaluated a horizontal that conveyor halt for improving the
efficiency of rear mounted mover. The mover was operated at wheat crop under
forward speed of 3, 4, 5 and 6 km/h. the average field capacity, field efficiency and

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cutting efficiency and cost requirements where 1.18 fed/h for the developed rear
mounted mover.

Sahar(1998) reported that the use of large scale machine is inappropriate because it
needs technical experience for operations and maintenance, high capital requirement,
low field efficiency is in small holding and losses of straws are high on irregular
followed oils. The use of small machine is appropriate for small holdings, low capital
requirements, low technical operation and maintenance experience.

Habib et al(2002) stated that the parameters affecting the cutting process are related to
the cutting tool, machine specifications and plant materials property are also the
cutting energy consumed and harvesting process.

J Prasad et al(2001-2002) development of self-propelled riding type reaper

windrowers powered powered by small diesel engine. The results of test conducted
for variety of wheat crop, the min values of plant height, effective field capacity, fuel
consumption and total machine loss where 846 cm 0.336 ha/h, 1.35 and 0.610
respectively.

O’ Doherty et al (1991) studied the impact outing behavior of grass and straw stem
with sharp and blunt blades. At low cutting speed of grass stem about 65% of the
energy was utilized in overcoming friction. For stem the frictional component was
relatively low (5-10%) and stem kinetic energy was equal to about 20% of the total
energy input.

Manjunatha et al(2008) evaluates field performance of vertical conveyor paddy

reaper. The actual field capacity of the power reaper was 0.3 ha/h with a fixed
efficiency of 73% at an average operating speed of 3.2 km/hr. The cost of cultivation
of paddy crop could be reduced through mechanization of harvesting operations.

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Ni Ni Auug, with Papa Myo and Zow Mol Htet(2012) evaluate the field performance
of a vertical conveyor paddy reaper and stated the Preparation of in order to minimize
the loss in reaping, before operation, it is necessary to prepare the field.

2.3. Advantages and Disadvantages

2.3.1. Advantages
 Mechanization of harvesting machine :
 Increases production of crops
 Facilitates gathering period
 Allows work to done by limited workers
 Lower production cost

2.3.2. Disadvantages

The disadvantages of harvesting machine are:

 It increases unemployment because limited specialized operation can

work many tasks.
 It cannot reach the sides in reaping it implies there is a loss in reaping.

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

In this project our goal is to design an affordable and inexpensive mechanized

harvesting machine for small scale and medium scale farmers, to help them for
harvesting their crop efficiently. Standing from this aim we discussed the following
ideas, which are inevitable.

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a. Discussion with concerning bodies about small scale agriculture and harvesting
practices by preparing questionnaires.

 For this reason questionnaires were prepared and participants who have full

information about farming and agricultural mechanization were selected.

 The questionnaires were distributed to participants.

 The participants filled the questionnaires properly.

 The questionnaires paper had been collected.

b. Identify and interview farm harvesting equipment which are in use now a days.

 We done this by preparing an interview question and ask each participants

individually to get clear information.

c. Review various international international papers,journals and articles about how

to design mechanized harvesting machine

 We have done this by google any design criteria from the internet and
reference books, which fulfills our geographic areas and climate conditions.

d. Design of mechanized harvesting machine.

3.2 PARTICIPANT AND SAMPLE

The main participant of our research are farmers but collecting data from all parts of
Ethiopia is difficult. As a result to overcome this problem, 50 Addis Ababa science
and technology university student’s who have farmer parents were selected.

3.3 INSTRUMENTATION

For qualitative analysis such as economic analysis ,distribution analysis and time
analysis questionnaires are optional. Therefore we use questionnaires to collect data.
But for a detailed findings, we also used interview after questionnaires. Finally we
used pictures to explain the answer that we got from the interview.

CHAPTER FOUR

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Result and Discussion

4.1 Result

Table 4.1discussion question about the concept of mechanized harvesting tools used and distribution

Question Yes No
Do your family use mechanized harvesting tools? 0 50
Do your family think using mechanized harvesting tool increase 50 0
productivity?
Do your parents know there is a mechanization agricultural institution in 30 20
Ethiopia?

Table 4.2 reason why farmers do not use mechanized harvesting machine

Question Reasons Participants

Why your families do not use High cost of machine 18
Lack of distribution 12
mechanized harvesting tool?
Ignorance to use 0

Table 4.3 numbers of labour needed to harvest one TIMAD crop per days(10 hours)

Number of labour 8 9 10 11 12
Participants 2 7 28 10 3

Interview

If your parents do not use mechanized harvesting tool, which type of traditions
harvesting tool do they use?

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Answer :Sickle

Figure 2 traditional harvesting tool(sickle)

4.2 Discussion

From the survey of the table 4.1 approximately all Ethiopian small holder farmers do
not use mechanized harvesting tool. But all of them knows that using mechanized
tools increases productivity.

Question number 3 table 4.1 implies that among Ethiopian farmers 60% of them
knows there is a Mechanization Agricultural Institution but 40% of them do not know.

From table 4.2 among 30 farmers who have knowledge of Mechanization Agricultural
Institution in Ethiopia 18(60%) do not buy due to its cost and 12(40%) do not buy due
to the lack of access.(see at the appendices)

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CHAPTER FIVE

Conclusion and Recommendation

5.1 Conclusion

 Most farmers do not use mechanized harvesting machine.

 Farmers understanding about using mechanized harvesting machine to
increase productivity is high.
 The amount money that farmers invest or pay for labour is high.
 But to save this amount of money farmers work for long time alone which
causes tiredness and agony
 Therefore designing a mechanized harvesting machine is necessary

5.1.1 MACHINE DESIGN

This machine uses a gasoline engine to rotate blades and to make the machine
forward.

The machine needs the following parts to work efficiently;

1. Design of engine compartment: This part includes all the power production, and
fuel reservoirs;

 The fuel reservoir is sited on the top of the engine to store fuel.
 When the oprater starts the machine the fuel enters into engine piston and
power production starts.
 This produced power is manipulated by break and clutch pedals to distribute
into wheels and rotating blades by means of power shaft.

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 Figure 3 gasoline engine

2. Design of wheels, This machine has two wheels (to minimize cost) driven by
engine power;

 The power comes from the shaft is distributed into wheels by means of
differential [see on appendices]
 The wheel type of this machine is a tractor wheel having many large blocks in
order to use for different geographical area and muddy conditions.

Figure 4 wheel of the machine

3. Design of long tip triangular planes;

These plates are forced on the front of the machine direct crops stalk movement.

 The two plates are fixed on the front left and right side of the machine which
used to separate the crop to be cut and not to be cut.
 This are also attached from the basement of the machine by the means of a
link.
 The remaining one plate is placed in between the two plates.
 This plate is used to protect the cut crop from falling.

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  It is attached only from the basement by the means of a link.

Figure 5 long tip triangular planes

4. Design of rotating blades;

 There are three rotating blades which used to move the crop in to machine
wall and finally to the next stage (tying stage).
 The first blade is sited beneath the middle triangular plates.
 The next blade is sited beneath the right triangular plate (viewed from
operator).
 The last plate is sited above the right triangular plate to overcome falling
crops having too long stalk.

5. Design of cutting blades;

 Blades which are attached with each other by means of chain mechanism.
 Rotate this cutting chain full a gear mechanism inside the chain is used.
 These cutting blade chains are sited on the basement of machine.

6. Design of tying parts;

In front of the engine compartment a large closed circular cylinder is placed with full
of coiled tapes.

 The cylinder is drilled at the top center closing to elongate the rope inside the
cylinder to the tying area.
 A vertical rotating shaft with two columns is constructed.
 This shaft moves the rope continuously into the desired position by a means of
gear mechanism.
 Tying machine: it is sited on the right of harvesting machine (viewed from
operator) which ties cut crop when the rope rotates and revolution.

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7. Design of accessories;

 Two load handle bars with hand brake are used to manage direction of
machine movement.
 The basic design that we specially concern on this project is design of height
manipulator.

The height of the crop to be cut varies according to crop height, amount crop stalk
needed or requested and other many condition most of harvesting machines available
in market has no high manipulator.

For our design, we combine a jack in between the basement and cutting blades to
manipulate cutting height.

5.1.2 Working principle

i. When an operator on the machine the engine starts to produce power, this
power transmitted into wheels
 Since the wheel get power, the machine starts to move.
 The operator manipulates the movement of machine by turning the
handle of left or right to reach a place where crop harvesting starts.
ii. When the operator presses the hand clutch pedal, power transmitted to rotating
blades and cutting blades.
iii. The machine moves to forward the long nose triangular plate separate the crop
to be cut from the crop not to be cut.
 When the crop to be cut and not to be cut separated the rotating blades
forced the crop stalk to the machine front wall.
iv. The forward movement of machine combined with rotating blade increase the
interaction between crops and machine front wall. This causes ease to cut crop
stalk by rotating blades.
v. The blades under the machine fully rotates and make the cutting easier.
vi. The cut crops will again force to their next stage of rotating blades.
vii. These cut crops reach to the tying area,

At this process;

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  Ropes which are elongated from rope cylinder passes over the vertically
mounted shaft and columns and attached to a needle shape link.
 A continuous movable arm coiled by rope efficiently, the next crop
coming to tying area push to the exit area.
 Finally the tied crop thrown away from the right side the machine (viewed
from the operator)
 This process continues up to the end of crop harvesting.
 When crop harvesting ads the operator first pull the hand clutch pedal up
cause to stop rotating balder and to work.
 Finally switch the engine.

5.1.3 Economic analysis and number of labour need

From table 4.3 the average number of labour per one-third of hector for 10 hour is 10

The average birr per labour for 10 hour is 200 birr including lunch therefore the total
amount of birr that the farmers pay for one hector is

Total birr = 3×10×200 =600 birr {indicated in appendices}

Ethiopian farmers have an average of 2 hector farm land

Total birr payment per year = 2×6000 =12000

But using harvesting machine which total manufacture cost is not more than
15000birr with expected lifetime of 5 year, the depreciation cost can be calculated as

Total birr payment for labour per 5 year = 5×12000 = 60000birr.

Total birr payment for machine with fuel consumption = 15000 + 5000 =20000birr.

Net cash profit = 60000 – 20000 = 40000.

5.2 Recommendation

Mechanized harvesting machines are available in many countries sufficiently like

China and India. But in Ethiopia it is not enough.

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Standing from the survey we recommend the following.

 The government, private sector and all concerning institutions should give
priority to manufacture different harvesting machines.
 Farmers need to use mechanized harvesting machines, but the distribution is
so the agriculture mechanization department in ministry of agriculture and in
regional level should be available up to woreda and kebele levels.
 The agricultural mechanization department and other concerning in
situations should work with universities and colleges and help financially to
manufacture different harvesting machines.
 There may be small unknown issue occurrences if the prototype is made. To
overcome and reduce this issues a model of prototype is needed, but due to
lack of resource we did not made it. So other designer and manufacturing
companies should look at our idea for manufacturing of this design. After
some iterations the machine will work efficiently and we hope it will be sold
in the market.
 Finally we recommend farmers to use “a2HP Gasoline Engine.

All the above recommendations will decrease human agony increase productivity
and finally leads the country to prosperity.

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References

Devani, R. S. & Pandey,M. M. (1985). ”Performance evaluation of vertical conveyor

reaper windrower”. Karnataka Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 9(1), 102-105.

El-Sahrigi, A.F; A.S. Haman and Y. F. Sharobeem (1992).”Development of tractor

front mounted reaper windrower”. Agricultural Engineering ,14 (1), 50-67.

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Habib, Azzam and Khattab (2001). A theoretical analysis of the Free-cutting process

of plant materials: 1St International Conference for Manufacturing Agricultural

Equipment and Machinery. 9th Conference of Misr Society of Agric., Eng, 2.

Mahrous (1995). Tested and evaluated rear mounted mower: M. Sc. Thesis.
Agricultural Engineering. Dept. Faculty of Agric. Zagazig Univ.:Egypt.

Manjunatha (2008). Field performance evaluation of vertical conveyor paddy reaper:

International Journal of Agricultural Engineering Volume 6, Issue 2,394–397.

Ni Ni Aung, et.al (2012). Field Performance Evaluation of a Power Reaper for Rice
Harvesting: International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology
Research Volume 1, Issue 1,2-4.

O,Dogherty MJ, Gale GE (1991). Laboratory studies of the dynamic behavior of

grass, straw and polystyrene tube during high-speed cutting. Agric. Eng

Res. 49: 33-57.

Persson,S. (1993). Development of a rotary counter shear mower. 36(6): 1517-1523.

Sahar (1988). Design of a harvester appropriate for Egyptian Agriculture: Journal of

Mechanical and Civil Engineering ,Volume 12, Issue 3 Ver. I 15-16.

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Sharma,N. & Mukesh,S. (2008 & 2010). Farm machinery design principles and
problems. agricultural book 1st &2nd ed, 822-872. India: Indian research press.

Appendices a

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Appendices B

Figure 6 high cost and large size harvesting machine

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