Bionic Sawblade Based on Grasshopper Incisor for Corn Stalk Cutting

Grasshopper [Chondracris rosea rosea (De Geer)] possesses sharp and serrated incisors that have an advantageous capacity for cutting plant. The special outline of the incisor lobe described by reverse engineering was used for the prototype of the teeth of bionic saw manufactured by Wire Electronic Discharge Machine. In total one traditional saw and four bionic saws (which teeth are full teeth, first teeth, second teeth, and third teeth) were manufactured and compared for the cutting property. The experiments for cutting corn stalk using bionic saws and traditional saw were conducted in laboratory conditions using universal testing machine at quasi-static speed of 4 mm per second. The results show that the cutting force and the average energy consumed for cutting corn stalk using bionic saw is lower compared with commercial saw. 8.95 J consumed for cutting a corn stalk using bionic saw of full teeth in average is lower by 12.85% than 10.27 J needed for traditional saw. In additional the average cutting force for four types of bionic saws is lower than that of traditional saw. The least average force is 41.11 N for bionic saw of first teeth much lower than 71.97 N for traditional saw. In conclusion, the special shaped incisors of grasshopper are a potential prototype that can be exploited to develop new cutting element to cut lignocellulosic biomass more efficiently. These results would be helpful for designing cutting elements on crop harvesting, biomass size reduction and other processing machinery.

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