• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.290-298
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• 2014

Purpose: To ascertain the increase of the farm income that predominantly relies on human resources by mechanizing Welsh onion harvesting, a tractor-mounted Welsh onion harvester was developed in this study. Method: An experiment for evaluating harvesting performance was performed for the developed Welsh onion harvester in an actual Welsh onion farm. The harvest performance was evaluated at the tractor running speeds of 5.0 cm/s, 11.4 cm/s and 15.8 cm/s, by comparing the operating efficiency, harvest rate, and damage rate of the Welsh onion harvester. Results: The performance of the harvester was rated as very good, with a 100% harvest rate, regardless of tractor running speed. Furthermore, it is shown that work efficiency of the harvester is expected to increase as the running speed increases. Nonetheless, the damage rate of the harvested Welsh onions at running speeds 5.0 cm/s, 11.4 cm/s, and 15.8 cm/s, increased correspondingly and proportionally to speeds from 4.55% to 6.53% and to 11.29%. The residual amount of soil on the harvested Welsh onions was about 0.24% of their weight showing excellent soil-removal performance of the harvester. Conclusion: The developed Welsh onion harvester is believed to improve the labor productivity and cultivation environment of Welsh onion farmhouses by the mechanization of the harvesting process that is currently associated with the largest amount of labor hours.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.16-25
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• 2019

Recently, due to labor shortages in rural areas within South Korea, the demand for upland-field machinery is growing. In addition, there is a lack of development of systematic performance testing of upland-field machinery. Thus, this study examined structural safety and drawbar pull based on soil properties, as a first step for systematic performance testing on the test bed. First, the properties of soil samples from 10 spots within the experimental site were examined. Second, the strain was measured and converted into stress on 8 points of an onion harvester that are likely to fail. More specifically, the chosen parts are linked to the power, along with the drawbar pull, using a 6-component load cell equipped between the tractor and the onion harvester. The water content of the soil ranged between 5.7%-7.5%, and the strength between 250-1171 kPa. The test soil was subsequently classified into loam soil based on the size distribution ratio of the sieved soil. The onion harvester can be considered as structurally safe based on the derived safety factor and the drawbar pull of 115-1194 kgf, according to the working speed based on agricultural fieldwork.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.44-48
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.544-547
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• 2002

According to the rising of national economic level. domestic consumption of vegetables having high additive values is increased continuously due to increased consumption of meat in last decade. These vegetables are produced almost in this country and are limited to import from neighbor countries in due of high transportation expenses for storing in refrigerated container. It is very important to mechanize the harvest work, forming more than 30% for their production cost, in order to cultivate variable vegetables at the same time according to their harvesting seasons. In this state its former harvest methods, with using of human power or semi-automatic harvest, caused to increase their production cost due to high labor cost and low working efficiency. The former onion harvest being operated almost by semi-automatic plant distributer mechanism have many limit and troublesome for cultivation spaces, vinyle mulched ridge, gravel mixture in soil. Therefore, it is necessary to develope a fully automatic and self-running situation and overcome above handicaps, even in the farm covered with vinyle house or mulch sheets. This newly developed onion harvest can be applied to plant various young trees and will be able to export together with onion haying their competition in the worldwide market in which the culinary vegetable method or farm conditions is similar to our country.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.45-49
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• 2003

According to the rising of national economic level, domestic consumption of vegetables having high additive values is increased continuously due to increased consumption of meat in last decade. These vegetables are produced almost in this country and are limited to import from neighbor countries in due of high transportation expenses for storing in refrigerated container. It is very important to mechanize the harvest work, forming more than 30% for their production cost, in order to cultivate variable vegetables at the same time according to their harvesting seasons. In this state its former harvest methods, with using of human power or semi-automatic harvest, caused to increase their production cost due to high labor cost and low working efficiency.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1999.07a
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• pp.71-76
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• 1999

우리나라의 마늘ㆍ양파의 재배면적은 '98년 현재 37,337㏊, 14,806㏊이고 생산량은 각각 39만여톤, 87만여톤으로 밭작물 중에서 큰 비중을 차지하고 있으나 수확작업의 대부분이 인력에 의하여 이루어지고 있기 때문에 생산비가 높고 수입품과의 가격차이가 심하여 재배농가에 큰 부담이 되고 있다. 한편 마늘ㆍ양파의 기계화작업이라야 경운정지, 방제, 비닐피복 등에 그치고 있고 일부지역에서 마늘 수확시 굴취기를 사용하고 있는 실정이다. 더욱이 논에서 마늘ㆍ양파를 재배할 경우 수확시기와 벼농사의 이앙시기가 이어지기 때문에 적기에 빠른 수확이 가능한 수확기의 개발이 요구되고 있다. (중략)