Effect of Knives Type on Some Operational Characteristics fora Locally Assembly Motorized Vibration Cutter Used for Date Palm Fronds Pruning

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of pruning cutting knives for locally assembly motorized vibration cutter on some operational characteristic used for date palm fronds. An implement was fabricated to cut the fronds around the date palm tree trunk. Three types of knife included A,B and Cwas used in this study .One frond cutting time, One palm frond cutting time, cutting level,productivity, noise level, vibration and efficiency was measured in this experiment . Complete block design with three replications was used in this study. Least significant differences (L.S.D) under 0.05 level was used to compeer the mean of treatment. The results showed thatB type gave a lower time in cutting one frond stood 3.11 sec. A type got lowest time of cutting three rows of fronds stood 1.74 min, also gave less differences in surface cutting level andlevel of noising stood 5.66 mm and 78.04 (db) respectively.B type knife got less vibration stood 5.25 m.sec-2. Also it gave the higher amount of productivitystood 8.80 palm /h. A type gave a high efficiency, it got 78.76%.Using manufacturing equipment for cutting date palm frond was successfully done.


INTRODUCTION
Date palm (phoenix dactylifera L.) can be consider as one of many oldest trees which human has derived benefit and it has been cultivated since long ancient time [11], also considered as oldest known fruit and only desert plant defiantly domesticate in its harsh environments [15].Date palm tree has been cultivated for at least 5000 years in north Africa and the middle east [4].date palm tree has along trunk, with about 30m height and lives about 100 years [10]. Many operations that need to performed during several times of the year to maintain thecrown of the date palm [6].Therefore,Cutting the dry and dead fronds is one of important date palm crown maintenance because, they hinder the worker to climb the palm trunk to do essential operations like pollination and harvesting [1] .Frond base is the strongest part of palm frond irrespective of moisture content and maturity [3]. Numerous of traditional tool are used to cut the palm fronds like knives and saws tools [12], these tools has many disadvantages ,generally, need more energy for cutting,this energy mainly comes from worker and this effort can be reduce by sharpness the tool edge and man self-skill, therefore, the worker should be strong enough to maintain his energy all day, generally workers cannot be able to maintain his energy for the whole day and normally stop when they fell tired [8].So, tools and Implements are playing a significant role to reduce effort ,cost and operations time, alsoFrond analysis could provide the basic parametric requirements of the blade for efficient cutting [14] . Farmers looking for tools and equipment used motorized power to cut the palm frond in leastof effort and cost. Pruning is an important agricultural operation to remove date palm tree leaves; leaf bases and the fiber also remove spines and high offshoot [1]. Many factors are affecting in cutting plant material like physical properties of plant material, react against the cutting tool, method of cutting, cutting angle and speed of cutting also sharpness and shape of cutting tool [13].Development of a more effective, efficient and ergonomic cutting mechanism for palm frond cutting is important in facing futureglobal competition [2]. Chisel, sickle and curved knife are widely used as cutting tools in many countries and still effective because there's no new tools have surpassed them [8] .Thus, if there's a mechanical equipment that requires less power for date palm pruning would be able to work longer and increase of productivity, this study was conducted.

II.
MATIRIALSAND METHODS The experiment was carrying out for testing a local assembly manufacturing palm fronds motorized cutter with three types of locally forged knives A,B and C were used in this experiment.Knives were forged by usinghigh temperature ovenat790 C° for 30 min after that doing water cooling to give them good hardness, then, tested the knives hardness by using Rockwell test, it is stood 65 HR.Time of one frond cutting, three rows of frond time cutting, level of surface cutting,field productivity, hand tool vibration, equipment noise and field efficiency was measured in the experiment. Randomized complete block design (CRBD) with three replications was used in this study, lest significant different (L.S.D) and 0.05 levels were used to compare the mean of treatment. The motorized vibration date palm fronds cutter and three types of knives was manufactured and assembled at the mechanical workshop in the department of agricultural machines and equipment, college of agriculture, university of Baghdad. The equipment consists of many main parts. 2.1-Components of equipment, (Fig.1). The motorized vibrator palm frond cutter consists of the essential following parts:-1-Gasolineengine has 2 hp, two stroke engine, and 3000-5000 rpm.  C-Type C shape knife, it has length 19.5 cm, width, 11.80 cm and 1 mm thickness (Fig.2)

2.2-Studied Properties 2.2.1.Time of cutting one frond
Cutting time measured by using stop watch when used equipment to cutthe fronds in date palm field,(frond. Sec).

2.2.2Time of cutting three rows frond.
Time measured by using same method in 2.2.1.

Differences of cutting surface level .
Was measured the different in cutting surface level (mm).

2.2.4-Productivity
It was measured by calculate the total time of cutting including the lost time for rest and moving in the field also the time of refuel the engine and maintenance in one palm per hour (palm.h).

±Noise
Measured by using noise meter (db)

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Measured by using vibration meter (m.sec 2.2.7 Field efficiency Field efficiency was measured by using the following question which proposetby [7] Table 1 shows the effect of knife type on time for one front cutting , A and B type of knives showed no significant different in the time of cutting one frond stood 3.11 and 3.22 secrespectively compared with C type witch got 3.34sec .

International Journal of Environment, Agriculture and Biotechnology (IJEAB)
Vol -2, Issue-4, July-Aug-2017  http://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijeab/2.4.19  ISSN: 2456-1878 www.ijeab.com Page | 1599 3.2 cutting for one date palm time,(min). Table 1 shows the effects of knife typeon time of cutting three rows of date palm tree,the results showed no significant different between A and B type, they got 1.74 and 1.76 min respectively, but there's a significant different with C type ,it got 4.04 min.

3-Variation in surface cutting level, (mm).
The result in table 1 showed the effects of type of knife in cutting leveling. Type A showed the superiority in the variation of cutting level stood 5.66 mm compared with B and C type which they got 5.81 and 5.92 mm respectively.

3.4Productivity (palm/h)
The relationship of type of cutting knife to the one date palm frondscutting productivity is shown in table 1 ,the Btype got highest field productivity amounted 8.80 palm/h, compared with A and C type witch they got 8.77 and 6.09 palm/h respectively.  (2) showed the effect of type of knife in level of vibration that translate to the worker hand ,the effect of B type showed the superiority to get lower vibration stood 5.25 m.sec -2 compared with B and C which they got 5.36,5.27 respectively. Table 2 showed the result of noise level test of an equipment .A type got less amount of noising level stood 78.04db compared with B and C type which they got 78.48 and 82.44db respectively .the reason for that may be due the less power required to cut fronds . 3.7-Field productivity efficiency, (%). Table 2 shows no different between A and B type of cutting knife on the field efficiency witch they got highest amount stood 87.76 and 87.36 %,but the C type got a lowest efficiency stood 60.90 % compared ,the result showed changethe knife type from A and B to C type led to decrease to field efficiency , the reason due to the increase of cutting force which lead to increase cutting time.

IV.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION Using the locally assembling equipment for cutting date palm fronds with three types of cutting knives is successfully done .due to the above results it is clear that A and B knife types got the lower time in one frond cutting, cutting one date palm . Type B knife got highest SURGXFWLYLW\ FRPSDUHG ZLWK RWKHUV W\SH %XW WKH\ GRQ ¶W have different etween all types in level of vibration incutting operation. on the other hand , C type got a lowest amount of field efficiency, therefore using A and B type of cutting knives to cut date palm fronds which gave the best results was recommend .