Design and test of a new type header of corn harvester for reaping both corn stalk and spike

Abstract. Traditional corn harvesters usually do not have the function of reaping stalk, or are immature to reap corn stalk. In order to utilize the whole value of corn both in stalk and spike, a new type of corn harvesting header for both stalk and spike was designed and manufactured, working process and parameters of plate-roller picking device and stalk chopper of the header had been described in detail in this article. Field experiments were made in variable working speeds, and the mass of kernels and the length and mass of chopped stalk were measured manually. The results showed that when the working speed was 4 km/h, 5 km/h and 6 km/h, the maximum of corn spike loss, corn kernels loss and corn kernels broken loss was 2.6%, 0.41%, 0.3%, respectively, and corresponding to the average length of corn stalk was 34.49 mm, 30.01 mm, 35.75 mm. When working speed was 5 km/h and engine rotatable speed was 2200 r/min, the header would have the best performance. This study illustrated the designed header could satisfy the design requirement of corn harvester.