Study on the mechanical topping of sugar beet / Ahmed Mohamed Kotb Nasef ; Supervised Abdelaal Zaki Tayb , Mohamed Naguib Rostom , Tarek Hussin Ali

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Agricultural Engineering

Field experiments were carried out to develop a flail mower to top the sugar beet plants. The main idea of the development was to design and manufacture a device for chopping the sugar beet leafs and topping the crown of the roots. The device consisted of chopping unit, root metering system and topping knife. The main objectives of this study were to evaluate the performance of the developed machine using topping unit attached to a flail mower to chop the leaf and top the beet heads in the same time. The developed machine was tested at six different forward speeds (2.1, 3.2, 4.1, 5.1, 6.2 and 7.3 km/h), six different rotor speeds (732, 876, 1000, 1100, 1200 and 1300 rpm.), three different blade angles of (29{u00B0}, 35{u00B0}, and 39{u00B0}) and four different distances between shoes (25, 35, 45, and 55 mm). It was found that using the tested topping unit equipped with 35 mm distance between shoes, blade angle of 29{u00B0} and rotor speed of 1200 rpm. driven at working speed of 2.10 km/h gave topping efficiency of 97.00% at field capacity of 0.93 fed/h and topping cost was 129.15 LE/fed. Therefore, it is recommended to use the modifications which showed the suitable results for big sugar beet farms to concur cheap mechanical topping. The results showed that the manual topping cost for one feddan/day equal 320 LE/fed. Meanwhile, the mechanical topping cost was 129.15 LE/fed. at working speed of 2.10 km/h

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