Assessment of BRRI Whole Feed Combine Harvester (Model BRRI WCH2021) for Mechanized Rice Harvesting in Bangladesh

Agricultural mechanization plays a pivotal role in the transition from subsistence to commercial agriculture, with a particular focus on labour-intensive activities like harvesting. This study assesses the operational characteristics of the BRRI Whole Feed Combine Harvester (Model BRRI WCH2021) at the field level. Developed under the SFMRA project, the harvester’s technical performance and loss assessment were conducted during the Boro 2022 and Aman 2022 seasons in farmer fields in Bangladesh’s Rangpur region. The field efficiency of the harvester was determined to be 62.5% and 57.9% in the Boro and Aman seasons, respectively. Fuel consumption rates were recorded at 2.77 l/ha and 2.31 l/ha for the Boro and Aman seasons. The total harvesting losses, encompassing cutter bar, shatter, cylinder, and separation loss, averaged 0.56% and 0.48% in the Boro and Aman seasons, respectively. Mechanized harvesting with the BRRI Whole Feed Combine Harvester significantly reduced paddy losses by 5.81% compared to manual methods. The field evaluation results indicate the combine harvester’s satisfactory performance, highlighting its potential to alleviate labour demands during peak harvesting. The development of the BRRI WCH offers a sustainable solution for rice harvesting mechanization among progressive farmers. It paves the way for the broader adoption of advanced agricultural technology in Bangladesh.

Performance enhancement of a viscoelastic bistable energy harvester using time-delayed feedback control

This paper focuses on the stochastic analysis of a viscoelastic bistable energy harvesting system under colored noise and harmonic excitation, and adopts the time-delayed feedback control to improve its harvesting efficiency. Firstly, to obtain the dimensionless governing equation of the system, the original bistable system is approximated as a system without viscoelastic term by using the stochastic averaging method of energy envelope, and then is further decoupled to derive an equivalent system. The credibility of the proposed method is validated by contrasting the consistency between the numerical and the analytical results of the equivalent system under different noise conditions. The influence of system parameters on average output power is analyzed, and the control effect of the time-delayed feedback control on system performance is compared. The output performance of the system is improved with the occurrence of stochastic resonance(SR). Therefore, the signal-to-noise ratio expression for measuring SR is derived, and the dependence of its SR behavior on different parameters is explored.

A viscoelastic nonlinear energy sink with an electromagnetic energy harvester:Narrow-band random response

Nonlinear energy sink is a passive energy absorption device that surpasses linear dampers, and has gained significant attention in various fields of vibration suppression. This is owing to its capacity to offer high vibration attenuation and robustness across a wide frequency spectrum. Energy harvester is a device employed to convert kinetic energy into usable electric energy. In this paper, we propose an electromagnetic energy harvester enhanced viscoelastic nonlinear energy sink(VNES) to achieve passive vibration suppression and energy harvesting simultaneously. A critical departure from prior studies is the investigation of the stochastic P-bifurcation of the electromechanically coupled VNES system under narrowband random excitation. Initially, approximate analytical solutions are derived using a combination of a multiple-scale method and a perturbation approach. The substantial agreement between theoretical analysis solutions and numerical solutions obtained from Monte Carlo simulation underscores the method's high degree of validity. Furthermore, the effects of system parameters on system responses are carefully examined. Additionally, we demonstrate that stochastic P-bifurcation can be induced by system parameters, which is further verified by the steady-state density functions of displacement. Lastly,we analyze the impacts of various parameters on the mean square current and the mean output power, which are crucial for selecting suitable parameters to enhance the energy harvesting performance.

Effects of Rice Combine Harvester Application to Harvest Chinese Milk Vetch Seeds

During the test, the seed yield, Iabor efficiency, harvesting costs and eco-nomic benefits were compared and analyzed between mechanical harvesting tech-noIogy and traditional artificial harvesting technoIogy of Chinese miIk vetch seeds to studied the mechanical harvesting technoIogy and appIication effects. The resuIts showed that mechanical harvesting technoIogy increased the yield of 92.7 kg/hm2, reducing the seeds Ioss. It improved the Iabor efficiency and reduced the harvesting cost. For exampIe, a rice combine harvester was the equal of 18-20 person in the harvest quantity in one day, which directIy reduced the Iabor cost of 2 175-3 000 yuan/hm2 and increased the economic income of 3 307-4 099 yuan/hm2. So it wiI pIay an important roIe in soIving the shortage of Chinese miIk vetch seeds and ac-ceIerating the deveIopment of Chinese miIk vetch green manure crop in south China rice region.

COUPLED ANALYSIS FOR THE HARVESTING STRUCTURE AND THE MODULATING CIRCUIT IN A PIEZOELECTRIC BIMORPH ENERGY HARVESTER

The authors analyze a piezoelectric energy harvester as an electro-mechanically coupled system. The energy harvester consists of a piezoelectric bimorph with a concentrated mass attached at one end, called the harvesting structure, an electric circuit for energy storage, and a rectifier that converts the AC output of the harvesting structure into a DC input for the storage circuit. The piezoelectric bimorph is assumed to be driven into flexural vibration by an ambient acoustic source to convert the mechanical energies into electric energies. The analysis indicates that the performance of this harvester, measured by the power density, is characterized by three important non-dimensional parameters, i.e., the non-dimensional inductance of the storage circuit, the non-dimensional aspect ratio （length/thickness） and the non-dimensional end mass of the harvesting structure. The numerical results show that： （1） the power density can be optimized by varying the non-dimensional inductance for each fixed non-dimensional aspect ratio with a fixed non-dimensional end mass; and （2） for a fixed non-dimensional inductance, the power density is maximized if the non-dimensional aspect ratio and the non-dimensional end mass are so chosen that the harvesting structure, consisting of both the piezoelectric bimorph and the end mass attached, resonates at the frequency of the ambient acoustic source.

Nonlinear dynamic analysis of cantilevered piezoelectric energy harvesters under simultaneous parametric and external excitations

The nonlinear dynamics of cantilevered piezoelectric beams is investigated under simultaneous parametric and external excitations. The beam is composed of a substrate and two piezoelectric layers and assumed as an Euler-Bernoulli model with inextensible deformation. A nonlinear distributed parameter model of cantilevered piezoelectric energy harvesters is proposed using the generalized Hamilton＇s principle. The proposed model includes geometric and inertia nonlinearity, but neglects the material nonlinearity. Using the Galerkin decomposition method and harmonic balance method, analytical expressions of the frequency-response curves are presented when the first bending mode of the beam plays a dominant role. Using these expressions, we investigate the effects of the damping, load resistance, electromechanical coupling, and excitation amplitude on the frequency-response curves. We also study the difference between the nonlinear lumped-parameter and distributed- parameter model for predicting the performance of the energy harvesting system. Only in the case of parametric excitation, we demonstrate that the energy harvesting system has an initiation excitation threshold below which no energy can be harvested. We also illustrate that the damping and load resistance affect the initiation excitation threshold.

Integration of a nonlinear energy sink and a piezoelectric energy harvester

A mechanical-piezoelectric system is explored to reduce vibration and to harvest energy. The system consists of a piezoelectric device and a nonlinear energy sink （NES）, which is a nonlinear oscillator without linear stiffness. The NES-piezoelectric sys- tem is attached to a 2-degree-of-freedom primary system subjected to a shock load. This mechanical-piezoelectric system is investigated based on the concepts of the percentages of energy transition and energy transition measure. The strong target energy transfer occurs for some certain transient excitation amplitude and NES nonlinear stiffness. The plots of wavelet transforms are used to indicate that the nonlinear beats initiate energy transitions between the NES-piezoelectric system and the primary system in the tran- sient vibration, and a 1：1 transient resonance capture occurs between two subsystems. The investigation demonstrates that the integrated NES-piezoelectric mechanism can re- duce vibration and harvest some vibration energy.

Energy harvester array using piezoelectric circular diaphragm for rail vibration

Generating electric energy from mechanical vibration using a piezoelectric circular membrane array is presented in this paper.The electrical characteristics of the functional array consisted of three plates with varies tip masses are examined under dynamic conditions.With an optimal load resistor of 11 k,an output power of 21.4 m W was generated from the array in parallel connection at 150 Hz under a pre-stress of 0.8 N and a vibration acceleration of9.8 m/s2.Moreover,the broadband energy harvesting using this array still can be realized with different tip masses.Three obvious output power peaks can be obtained in a frequency spectra of 110 Hz to 260 Hz.The results show that using a piezoelectric circular diaphragm array can increase significantly the output of energy compared with the use of a single plate.And by optimizing combination of tip masses with piezoelectric elements in array,the frequency range can be tuned to meet the broadband vibration.This array may possibly be exploited to design the energy harvesting for practical applications such as future high speed rail.

Low-frequency and broadband vibration energy harvester driven by mechanical impact based on layer-separated piezoelectric beam

Vibration energy harvesting is to transform the ambient mechanical energy to electricity. How to reduce the resonance frequency and improve the conversion efficiency is very important. In this paper, a layer-separated piezoelectric cantilever beam is proposed for the vibration energy harvester(VEH) for low-frequency and wide-bandwidth operation, which can transform the mechanical impact energy to electric energy. First,the electromechanical coupling equation is obtained by the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory.Based on the average method, the approximate analytical solution is derived and the voltage response is obtained. Furthermore, the physical prototype is fabricated, and the vibration experiment is conducted to validate the theoretical principle. The experimental results show that the maximum power of 0.445 μW of the layer-separated VEH is about3.11 times higher than that of the non-impact harvester when the excitation acceleration is 0.2 g. The operating frequency bandwidth can be widened by increasing the stiffness of the fundamental layer and decreasing the gap distance of the system. But the increasing of operating frequency bandwidth comes at the cost of reducing peak voltage. The theoretical simulation and the experimental results demonstrate good agreement which indicates that the proposed impact-driving VEH device has advantages for low-frequency and wide-bandwidth. The high performance provides great prospect to scavenge the vibration energy in environment.

Analysis on Output Power for Multi-direction Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester

To predict the performance of multi-direction piezoelectric vibration energy harvester,an equation for calculating its output power is obtained based on elastic mechanics theory and piezoelectricity theory.Experiments are performed to verify theoretical analysis.When the excitation direction is along Y direction,a maximal output power about 0.139 mW can be harvested at a resistive load of 65kΩ and an excitation frequency of 136 Hz.Theoretical analysis agrees well with experimental results.Furthermore,the performance of multi-direction vibration energy harvester is experimentally tested.The results show that the multi-direction vibration energy harvester can harvest perfect energy as the excitation direction changes in XY plane,YZ plane,XZ plane and body diagonal plane of the harvester.

Reconstructing the size of individual trees using log data from cut-to-length harvesters in Pinus radiata plantations: a case study in NSW, Australia

With their widespread utilization, cut-to-length harvesters have become a major source of ‘‘big data’’ for forest management as they constantly capture, and provide a daily flow of, information on log production and assortment over large operational areas. Harvester data afford the calculation of the total log length between the stump and the last cut but not the total height of trees. They also contain the length and end diameters of individual logs but not always the diameter at breast height overbark（DBHOB） of harvested stems largely because of time lapse, operating and processing issues and other system deficiencies. Even when DBHOB is extracted from harvester data, errors and/or bias of the machine measurements due to the variation in the stump height of harvested stems from that specified for the harvester head prior to harvesting and diameter measurement errors may need to be corrected. This study developed（1） a system of equations for estimating DBHOB of trees from diameter overbark（DOB） measured by a harvester head at any height up to 3 m above ground level and（2） an equation to predict the total height of harvested stems in P. radiata plantations from harvester data. To generate the data required for this purpose, cut-to-length simulations of more than 3000 trees with detailed taper measurements were carried out in the computer using the cutting patterns extracted from the harvester data and stump height survey data from clearfall operations. The equation predicted total tree height from DBHOB, total log length and the small end diameter of the top log. Prediction accuracy for total tree height was evaluated both globally over the entire data space and locally within partitioned subspaces through benchmarking statistics. These statistics were better than that of the conventional height-diameter equations for P. radiata found in the literature, even when they incorporated stand age and the average height and diameter of dominant trees in the stand as predictors. So this equation when used with harvester data would outperform the conventional equations in tree height prediction. Tree and stand reconstructions of the harvested forest is the necessary first step to provide the essential link of harvester data to conventional inventory, remote sensing imagery and Li DAR data. The equations developed in this study will provide such a linkage for the most effective combined use of harvester data in predicting the attributes of individual trees, stands and forests, and product recovery for the management and planning of P. radiata plantations in New South Wales, Australia.

Effect of oxygen partial pressure and transparent substrates on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films and their performance in energy harvesters

Zinc oxide(ZnO) thin films were deposited onto different substrates — tin-doped indium oxide(ITO)/glass, ITO/polyethylene naphthalate(PEN), ITO/polyethylene terephthalate(PET) — by the radio-frequency(RF) magnetron sputtering method. The effect of various O2/(Ar+O2) gas flow ratios(0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6) was studied in detail. ZnO layers deposited onto ITO/PEN and ITO/PET substrates exhibited a stronger c-axis preferred orientation along the(0002) direction compared to ZnO deposited onto ITO/glass. The transmittance spectra of ZnO films showed that the maximum transmittances of ZnO films deposited onto ITO/glass, ITO/PEN, and ITO/PET substrates were 89.2%, 65.0%, and 77.8%, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy(SEM) images of the film surfaces indicated that the grain was uniform. The cross-sectional SEM images showed that the ZnO films were columnar structures whose c-axis was perpendicular to the film surface. The test results for a fabricated ZnO thin film based energy harvester showed that its output voltage increased with increasing acceleration of external vibration.

Incident flow effects on the performance of piezoelectric energy harvesters from galloping vibrations

In this paper, we investigate experimentally the concept of energy har- vesting from galloping oscillations with a focus on wake and turbulence effects. The .harvester is composed of a unimorph piezoelectric cantilever beam with a square cross-section tip mass. In one case, the harvester is placed in the wake of another galloping harvester with the objective of determining the wake effects on the response of the harvester. In the second case, meshes were placed upstream of the harvester with the objective of investigating the effects of upstream turbulence on the response of the harvester. The results show that both wake effects and up- stream turbulence significantly affect the response of the harvester. Depending on the spacing between the two squares and the opening size of the mesh, wake and upstream turbulence can positively enhance the level of the harvested power.

A piezoelectric energy harvester based on internal resonance

A vibration-based energy harvester is essentially a resonator working in a limited frequency range.To increase the working frequency range is a challenging problem.This paper reveals a novel possibility for enhancing energy harvesting via internal resonance.An internal resonance energy harvester is proposed.The excitation is successively assumed as the Gaussian white noise,the colored noise defined by a second-order filter,the narrow-band noise,and exponentially correlated noise.The corresponding averaged root-meansquare output voltages are computed.Numerical results demonstrate that the internal resonance increases the operating bandwidth and the output voltage.

Enhance limit cycle oscillation in a wind flow energy harvester system with fractional order derivatives

Advances in material science and mathematics in conjunction with tech- nological needs have triggered the use of material and electric components with fractional order physical properties. This paper considers the mathematical model of a piezoelectric wind flow energy harvester system for which the capacitance of the piezoelectric material has fractional order current-voltage characteristics. Additionally the mechanical element is assumed to have fractional order damping. The analysis is focused on the effects of order of derivatives on the appearance and characteristics of limit circle oscillations （LCO）. It is obtained that, the order of derivatives to enhance the amplitude of LCO and lower the threshold condition leading to LCO. The domains of efficiency of the system are illustrated in various parameters spaces.

Modeling and power performance improvement of a piezoelectric energy harvester for low-frequency vibration environment

A novel oscillator structure, bimorph piezoelectric cantilever beam with two-stepped variable thicknesses,is proposed to improve the energy harvestingperformance of the vibration energy harvester (VEH) under low-frequency vibration environment. Firstly, the piezoelectric cantilever is segmented to obtain the energy functions based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam assumptions, and the Galerkin approach is utilized to discretize the energy functions. Applying boundary conditions and continuity conditions enforced at separation locations, the electromechanical coupled governing equations for the piezoelectric energy harvesterareintroduced by means of the Lagrange equations. Furthermore, the steady state response expressions are obtained for harmonic base excitations at arbitrary frequencies. Numerical results are computed and the effects ofthe lengths-ratio, thicknesses-ratio,end thicknessand load resistance on the output voltage, harvested power and power density are discussed. Moreover, to verify thecorrectness ofanalytical results, the finite element method (FEM)simulationis also conducted to analyze performance of the proposed VEH, where a good agreement is presented. All the results show thatthe present oscillator structureis moreefficient than the conventional uniform beam structure, specifically, for vibration energy harvesting in low-frequency environment.

Nonlinear vibration analysis of a circular composite plate harvester via harmonic balance

Alumped parameter transversevibration model of a composite plate harvester is analyzed via harmonic balance approaches. The harvester is mainly composed of a piezoelectriccircular composite clamped by two steel rings and a proof mass on the plate.The lumped parameter model is a 1.5 degree-of-freedom strongly nonlinear system with a higher order polynomial stiffness. Aharmonic balance approach is developed to analyze the system, and the resulting algebraic equations are numerically solved by adopting an arc-length continuation technique. Anincremental harmonic balance approach is also developedfor the lumped parameter model. The two approaches yieldthe same results.The amplitude-frequency responses produced by the harmonic balance approach are validated by the numericalintegrations and the experimental data. The investigation reveals that there coexist hardening and softening characteristics in the amplitude-frequency response curves under sufficiently large excitations. The harvester with thecoexistenceof hardening and softening nonlinearitiescan outperform not only linear energy harvesters but also typical hardening nonlinear energy harvesters.

Spiral piezoelectric transducer in torsional motion as low-frequency power harvester

A structure consisting of a spiral piezoelectric transducer and a concentrated mass is proposed as a low-frequency piezoelectric power harvester. A theoretical model is developed for the system from the theory of piezoelectricity. An analysis is performed to demonstrate the low-frequency nature of the system. Other basic characteristics of the power harvester including the output power, voltage, and efficiency are also calculated and examined.

A comprehensive review of miniatured wind energy harvesters

Following the current rapid development of the Internet of Things(IoT)and wireless condition monitoring systems,energy harvesters which use ambient energy have become a key part of achieving an energy-autonomous system.Miniature wind energy harvesters have attracted widespread attention because of their great potential of power density as well as the rich availability of wind energy in many possible areas of application.This article provides readers with a glimpse into the state-of-the-art of miniature wind energy harvesters.The crucial factors for them to achieve high working efficiency under lower operational wind speed excitation are analyzed.Various potential energy coupling mechanisms are discussed in detail.Design approaches for broadening operational wind-speed-range given a variety of energy coupling mechanisms are also presented,as observed in the literature.Performance enhancement mechanisms including hydrodynamic configuration optimization,and non-linear vibration pick-up structure are reviewed.Conclusions are drawn and the outlook for each coupling mechanisms is presented.

Nonlinear characteristics of circular-cylinder piezoelectric power harvester near resonance based on flow-induced flexural vibration mode

The nonlinear behaviors of a circular-cylinder piezoelectric power harvester （CCPPH） near resonance are analyzed based on the flow-induced flexural vibration mode. The geometrically-nonlinear effect of the cylinder is studied with considering the in-plane extension incidental to the large defection. The boundary electric charges generated from two deformation modes, flexure and in-plane extension, were distinguished with each other because the charge corresponding to the latter mode produces no contribution to the output current. Numerical results on output powers show that there are multi- valuedness and jump behaviors.