The second stage of the cleaning system proved very effective.
Table 2 shows the amount of soybean seeds that were manually fed into the collection tray and the amount of recovered seeds.
In these initial trials, approximately 80% (with a standard deviation of 5.7), as given in table 2, of the seeds that were put on the collection tray ended up in the collection bin.
Checking the air outlet showed that some of the beans were escaping via the outlet due to the high air velocity in the system.
Incorporation of the “T” coupler after the “Y” coupler further reduced the air velocity, and tests showed that the bean recovery was increased up to 92%.
Bean losses at the collection tray were approximately 15%.
Out of the beans that were captured in the collection tray, 8% escaped through the muffler outlet of the secondary cleaning system as losses. As a whole, the results gained by laboratory investigations were promising.
A subsequent field trial, which is not within the scope of this article, was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype