Green leafy vegetables are an essential component of Chinese leafy vegetables. Due to their crisp stems and tender leaves, orderly harvester generally causes significant mechanical clamping damage. The physical and mechanical properties of green leafy vegetables are one of the important basis to design the orderly harvester. At the same time, they provide important parameters for the simulation and optimization of harvester. So, this paper measured the physical characteristic parameters of roots and stems of green leafy vegetables. Then, based on the TMS-Pro texture analyzer, the elasticity modulus of the roots and stems of green leafy vegetables were measured. The static friction coefficient, dynamic friction coefficient, and restitution coefficient of green leafy vegetables root-root, stem-stem, root-steel, and stem-steel were measured separately using a combination method of inclined plane and high-speed photography. Uniaxial compression creep experiments were carried out on whole and single leaf of green leafy vegetables using the TA.XT plus C universal testing machine. The constitutive equation of the four-element Burgers model was used to fit the deformation curve of the sample with time during the constant-pressure loading stage. The fitting determination coefficients R² were all higher than 0.996, which verified the reasonable validity of the selected model. The above experimental results provide a parameter basis and theoretical support for the design and discrete element simulation optimization of orderly harvester critical components of green leafy vegetables.

Due to the advantages of improving vegetable quality and reducing labor, technology for the orderly harvesting of green leafy vegetables has always been the focus of research. The core of the technology is the clamping and conveying device. At present, technology for the orderly harvesting of green leafy vegetables has several difficult problems, such as the plugging of the clamping and conveying device, great damage caused by mechanical clamping and high transportation loss. A green leafy vegetable is essentially a viscoelastic body and plastic deformation is an important index to measure its mechanical damage. Therefore, based on vegetable linear viscoelastic characteristics, we determined the deformation and plastic damage mechanism caused by orderly clamping and conveying. A rheological constitutive model and mathematical equations of the damage deformation value were constructed for the green leafy vegetable mechanical clamping process. Viscoelastic parameters of green leafy vegetable samples were obtained by creep experiments. The elastic clamping force and clamping spacing were analyzed systematically when the flexible clamping and conveying device was clamping, conveying and collecting. Under different spring stiffness and clamping time combinations, green leafy vegetable plastic damage deformation values were calculated and the vegetable damage regularity analyzed. After comprehensive consideration, we concluded that, when the harvester forward speed was 0.6 km/h, the optimal parameter combination of the flexible clamping and conveying device was a conveying roller rotation speed of 80 r/min, and a spring stiffness combination of 2.0 N/mm and 0.6 N/mm. Finally, a bench test verified that the mechanized harvest effect was best under a combination of parameters. Thus, we proved that the method is appropriate for studying the effects of clamping and conveying devices on green leafy vegetable damage based on viscoelastic rheological characteristics.

Based on the single-crank linkage mechanism and the double-pendulum rod mechanism, herein, a reciprocating swing single-blade cutting device is appropriately designed for the needs of GLVs’ planting and cutting operations. It can effectively solve the existing double-blade cutting device’s in-soil operation issue, where clods of soil and stones adhere to the upper and lower cutting blades, resulting in problems such as excessive wear and blade fracture. Using ADAMS, a virtual model of the cutting device is established, and a kinematic analysis of the cutting process is performed to accurately determine the cutting trajectory curve and the mathematical model of the cutting rate. The single-factor test and quadratic regression orthogonal combination test are designed to investigate the influence of the test factors, including crank length, crank rotation speed, and forward speed on the repeated-cutting rate and the miss-cutting rate. Comprehensively considering the stability and reliability of cutting, power consumption, device design, and processing difficulty, the optimal operating parameters of the cutting device are obtained as crank length 19 mm, crank rotation speed 650 r/min, and forward speed 0.5 km/h. On this basis, the fitted regression equations of the repeated-cutting rate and the miss-cutting rate are established, the miss-cutting rate and the repeated-cutting rate under the optimal parameters are 1.519% and 28.503%, and the corresponding errors with the simulation values are obtained as 11.36% and −0.45%, respectively, which verified the validity of the fitted regression equations. In the present investigation, the motion behavior of the single-blade cutting device is methodically examined for the first time, and the cutting motion rules of the cutter are illustrated. The research results aim to provide a fairly solid theoretical basis and practical reference for the optimization design of the in-soil cutting device of GLVs’ orderly harvester.