Gripping mechanisms in current wood harvesting machines

This paper focuses on the structural synthesis of gripping mechanisms used in the mechanization of the harvesting process. The importance of the gripping function in current devices like harvesting heads is underlined. This function is performed with several typical mechanisms which are listed and described in this article. This study distinguishes two kinds of planar gripping mechanisms mainly used in opening and closing the rollers: five concentric and two lateral ones. Both kinds have advantages and drawbacks. So a third kind of hybrid mechanism has been designed in order to orientate the axis of the rollers during gripping motion in order to combine concentric and lateral gripping advantages. Two planar and one spatial existing mechanisms are described. The last part of this paper presents a structural synthesis of such a spatial parallel mechanism by using the structural parameters and the general formulae established by the third author. Nine kinematic diagrams of spatial parallel mechanisms are provided.