Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Deviation Blade Effect on Sedimentation Chamber Performance in Chickpea Harvesting Machine

The sedimentation chambers are used in various agricultural systems. In this study, an innovative design of the chickpea sedimentation chamber including the chamber with the flow path deviation blade are considered and the effect of this blade on the sedimentation efficiency, required flow, distribution of air flow and chamber erosion were investigated experimentally and numerically. The computational fluids dynamics for numerical simulations was used. A laboratory setup equipped with a hot wire anemometer and differential pressure meter was used to obtain the velocity and pressure data and model validation. The results showed that the use of the flow path diversion blade has an 11.4% increase in sedimentation efficiency, reduction of 6.67% of the required airflow and cause the reduction of erosion in chamber.