At present, there has been no mechanized equipment designed for the separation of the leaves from the stems of wakame in China, and the stem–leaf separation is mainly completed by manual work, which suffers from problems such as low efficiency, high cost, and poor quality. To develop mechanized stem–leaf separation equipment of wakame, it is necessary to have a preliminary understanding of the biomechanical characteristics of wakame. In this study, we adopted an electronic universal testing machine, a texture tester, and a friction tester to investigate the mechanical characteristics of the stems and leaves of salted wakame. Analysis was performed to clarify the effects of salted wakame thickness and loading speed on the tension, compression, shear, and separation mechanical properties as well as the effects of the loading speed, normal force, and contact material on the friction characteristics. As shown in the results, the average tensile strength, shear strength, and resilience of salted wakame stems were 2.27 MPa, 6.34 MPa and 0.27, respectively; the average tensile strength and shear strength of salted wakame leaves were 1.67 MPa and 2.93 MPa; the separation strength of the stems and leaves was 1.78 MPa, and the friction coefficient between salted wakame and stainless steel, silicone rubber, and vulcanized rubber was 0.38, 0.44 and 0.40 on average. In general, the increase in the loading rate, the shear strength, and the stem–leaf separation strength of salted wakame showed a downward trend, while the changes in the friction coefficient showed an upward trend, with no significant influence on the recovery and tensile strength. The tensile strength, resilience, shear strength, stem–leaf separation force, and strength increased as the thickness of the salted wakame improved. The friction coefficient of the salted wakame stems decreased with increasing the normal force, while the friction coefficient of the salted wakame leaves increased. In general, the increase in wakame thickness improved its mechanical properties, and the increase in the test loading rate led to the decrease in the mechanical properties of salted wakame. The research results in this paper can provide suggestions for the research and development of stem–leave separation equipment for saline salted wakame.

Regarding the current issues in Xinjiang, China, during the harvesting of cotton stalks, the lack of specialized, efficient, and durable cutting blades for cotton stalks causes uneven cutting, high power consumption, and short blade life. In this study, a biomimetic serrated blade was designed based on the Trictenotomidae mandible for efficient, low-power-consumption cutting. The biomimetic design, FEM-SPH coupled simulation, bench test, combined with response surface methodology, and field test were used. The simulation results showed that under the same working conditions, the maximum shear stress was 34.81% lower than that for the ordinary blade and 22.05% lower than that for the ordinary serrated blade. And the bench test results showed that cutting power consumption was reduced by about 20.12% and 15.69% compared to the ordinary cutting blade and serrated cutting blade, respectively. When cutting velocity was 1.3 m/s, cutting inclination angle was 11°, and ratio of cutting velocity and feeding velocity was 1.1, the biomimetic serrated cutting blade could achieve effective cutting of cotton stalks and obtain better quality of cutting—the cutting power per unit area and the cutting-edge angle after cutting cotton stalks were 52.08 kJ/m² and 6°, respectively. The research results can provide a theoretical basis and support for the utilization of cotton stalks out of the field, as well as the cutting of other similar crop stalks.

To address the resource utilization challenges of residual plastic film in Xinjiang and the issues of low reliability, poor cutting length qualification rates, and high energy consumption in existing film-mixed residue choppers, a rotary knife-type mixed film residue chopper was designed based on the “single support cutting + sliding cutting” principle. The device primarily consists of an adaptive feeding mechanism, a chopping mechanism, and a transmission system. The main structural and motion parameters of the mechanisms were determined through the analysis of feeding and chopping conditions. The primary factors affecting the cotton stalk chopping length qualification rate (CLCR-CS), residual film chopping length qualification rate (CFCR-RF), and specific energy consumption (SEC) were identified as the feeding roller speed, chopper speed, and the gap between the moving and fixed blades. Vibration characteristic analysis of the chopper was conducted using ANSYS software. The first six natural frequencies of the chopper were found to range from 112.54 to 186.65 Hz, with maximum deformation ranging from 0.885 to 1.237 mm. The excitation frequency was significantly lower than the first natural frequency, ensuring that the chopper met reliability and operational performance standards. A prototype was fabricated, and a second-order rotational orthogonal experiment was performed with CLCR-CS, CFCR-RF, and SEC as the test indicators and feeding roller speed, chopper speed, and the gap between the moving and fixed blades as the experimental factors. Variance and response surface analyses were conducted using Design-Expert software to clarify the effects and interactions of experimental factors on the test indicators. The second-order polynomial response surface model was optimized, and the optimal factor values were derived based on practical operational conditions. Verification experiments confirmed that the optimal operating parameters were a feeding roller speed of 32.40 r/min, a chopper speed of 222.0 r/min, and a blade gap of 1.0 mm. Under these conditions, CLCR-CS was 89.96%, CFCR-RF was 91.62%, and SEC was 5.36 kJ/kg, meeting the design specifications of the mixed film residue chopper.