Modeling Of Corn Ears By Discrete Element Method (DEM)

One of the main aims of today’s agriculture is to reduce the losses of different agricultural processes. With more than 1000 billion tons of production annually, corn is one of the most essential agricultural crops in the world so our study focuses on the modeling of corn ears by discrete element method (DEM) from the point of view of losses during corn harvesting. To describe the physical and mechanical properties of corn ears and its connections to the corn stalk, laboratorial and in-situ tests and observations were conducted. During an iteration process the mechanical model of the corn ear and the connection between the corn ear and the corn stalk were validated. There has been a good match between the numerical results and the experimental data. The simulation results clearly demonstrate that the discrete element model of corn ear is capable of modeling losses during corn harvesting in the future.