Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 23 ISSUE 1
Written by Tarek FOUDA, Adel ABDRABO, Shimaa SALAH, Hamada MORGAN

The research aimed to design, simulate, analyze stresses then manufacture a rice transplanting machine with local materials suitable for small rice holdings. The machine was designed and the stresses were simulated by Solidworks software to ensure the integrity of the design before manufacturing themachine. The transplanting machine consists of several parts, the most important of which are: Main frame, seedlings mat, and power transmission system. The main frame and the seedlings mat were designed and stresses affecting it were simulated in order to make sure that the design is suitable for the loads placed on them. The power transmission system is one of the most important parts in the rice transplanting machine. It contains important three unit of shafts namely: the intermediate reduction unit shaft, the transplanting unit shaft, and the wheel axle unit shaft. The sprockets and rotation speed of power transmission system were determined and synchronized to achieve the desired forward speed of 1.00, 1.25, 1.50, and 1.75 km h-1 and achieve the recommended hill spacing of 16, 18, 20, and 22 cm.Also, the diameters of the transmission shafts were calculated based on the torsional moments exposed to them and the stresses on shafts were analyzed and simulated. The design results concluded that the shafts diameters were 25, 20 and 40 mm and the maximum von Mises stress recorded 6.75e+001,4.34e+001and 5.39e+001 MPa for the intermediate reduction unit shaft, the transplanting unit shaft, and the wheel axle unit shaft, respectively. From simulation results, it was concluded that this parts will not fail under the given stresses and the parts will not carry out any significant deformations according to the applied loading conditions then the machine was manufactured based on these results.

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