Abstract:
Sweet potato is widely cultivated in China, which is the largest sweet potatoes producing countries in the world. However, because of the complex agricultural requirements for sweet potato cultivation, traditional manual planting is time-consuming and laborious, and the planting quality is difficult to meet the requirements. These reasons have resulted in a mechanization level of only 26% for sweet potato cultivation in China. At present, the commonly used agronomic requirements for sweet potato planting are raised beds with mulching planting. Under the mulched ridge planting mode, the working mechanisms of the two clamp-type transplanting devices (end-face cam transplanting device and disc cam transplanting device) are currently more suitable for the agronomic requirements of this planting mode are unclear, resulting in poor stability of sweet potato planting quality. In order to clarify the mechanism of how transplanting equipment affects seedling planting posture, this study comparatively analyzed two clamp-type devices—end-face cam and disc cam configurations—using integrated ADAMS-EDEM coupling simulations and field validation. A multi-physics model was developed, incorporating seedling flexible deformation, soil viscoelastic response, and device motion trajectory to determine optimal operational parameters. Systematic investigations revealed dynamic responses during transplanting, including soil insertion length, planting depth, and soil disturbance patterns. The simulation results show that the length of potato seedlings in soil by the end-face cam-type and disc cam-type transplanting devices is both 150 mm, with planting depths of 83 mm and 104 mm, respectively. The soil disturbance rates are 11.86% and 21.54%, and the theoretical film-breaking opening sizes are
6244.4 mm
2 and
2519.2 mm
2. The results indicate that the end-face cam-type transplanting device causes less soil disturbance, while the disc cam-type device demonstrates superior control over film-breaking opening sizes, which fully met the needs of field operation. Furthermore, the field experiment was carried out in the field under optimized parameters including a drive speed of 120 mm/s, rotation speed of 180°/s. The field experiment result showed that the length of potato seedlings in soil of the end-face cam-type and disc cam-type transplanting devices were 164 mm and 168 mm, with qualified rates of planting length in soil reaching 95% and 94.5%, respectively. The average depth of potato seedlings in soil were 91 mm and 98 mm, with qualified rates of planting depth in soil being 93.7% and 95.2%, respectively. The average film-breaking opening sizes were
5640 mm
2 and
2320 mm
2, with qualified rates of film-breaking opening size exceeding 97% for both transplanting devices. The corresponding relative errors between the ADAMS–EDEM coupling simulation values and the field trials were as follows: 8.53% and 10.71% for the average length of potato seedlings in soil, 8.79% and 6.12% for the average depth of potato seedlings in soil, and 10.72% and 8.58% for the average film-breaking opening sizes. All these errors fall within an acceptable range, thereby demonstrating the accuracy of the model. Based on the above theoretical analysis and field experiment results of the transplanting devices, this study proposes differentiated optimization measures for the two types of transplanting devices. For the end-face cam-type transplanting device, increasing the roughness of the seedling clamp contact surface can reduce the displacement of sweet potato seedlings in the seedling clamp. The disc cam-type transplanting device requires optimization of the cam profile to reduce abrupt changes in the profile, thereby minimizing soil disturbance. Additionally, both transplanting devices are equipped with synchronous compaction mechanisms to eliminate soil cavities. This finding is of considerable importance to developing the transplanting machine for planting sweet potato seedlings on mulched ridge planting systems, as well as for sustainable development of the sweet potato industry.