INCREASING THE QUALITY OF CLEANING ROOTS FROM THE SOIL
The article is devoted to improving the quality of cleaning root crops from contamination, which is achieved by using a new cleaner design that does not require the use of water in the technological process of work. Based on the heuristic analysis of known technical solutions, spiral screws were adopted as the working bodies of the cleaner, the rotation frequency of which is not the same and may vary depending on the type of root crops and the degree of soil contamination. In this case, even and odd spiral screws are rotated at different frequencies through chain gears with different numbers of sprocket teeth from one drive shaft. As a result of theoretical studies, analytical expressions describing the intensity of root crop cleaning in the proposed cleaner, depending on its design parameters and operating modes, were obtained. These solutions make it possible, taking into account certain values of the speed and acceleration of the root crops being cleaned from contamination, as well as their normal reactions and the potential friction force, to optimize the design parameters and operating modes of the proposed cleaner. It is established that the optimal frequency of rotation of spiral screws should be within 50...200 min<sup>-1</sup> with their length of 0,8 m and the gap between adjacent spiral screws of 4-30 mm. In this case, the rational diameter of the screws should be 0,225-0,275 m. At the same time, the specific savings in operating costs, in comparison with the basic variant, will amount to 101 rubles/ton, and the degree of reduction in the material and energy consumption of the cleaning process will be 53,1 % and 79 %, respectively. At the same time, additional investments in the amount of 117452 rubles will pay off in no more than 0,3 years.