Design of and experiment on herringbone rubber roller flattening and conditioning mechanism for alfalfa

Flattening and conditioning are important steps in the mechanical harvest and processing of alfalfa grass products. To improve the quality of alfalfa flattening and explore the influence of operating parameters on the flattening and breakage rates, an alfalfa flattening and conditioning mechanism consisting of a herringbone rubber roller was designed, and the influences of feed quantity, speed of the roller pair, and the gap between the roller pair on the flattening and breakage rates were studied based on a quadratic regression–orthogonal rotation test. The results showed that the influence of the test factors on the flattening and breakage rates decreased in the order of feed quantity > speed of the roller pair > gap between the roller pair. The optimal operation parameters of the flattening and conditioning mechanism were a feed quantity of 1.9 kg·s⁻¹, roller speed of 640 r·min⁻¹, and roller gap of 3.0 mm; under those operating parameters, the flattening rate was 93.94% and the breakage rate was 2.12%. This research could provide a theoretical basis and data support for the design and optimization of flattening and conditioning machinery for forage.