Design Considerations and Performance on a Forage Maceration Device

AN experimental forage maceration device, consisting of a cylinder with several counter-rotating planetary rolls around half its circumferance, was designed, built, and evaluated. A difference in the peripheral speeds of the cylinder and the rolls causes plant material to be macerated. Data were taken on the specific energy requirements and capacity of this device as a function of cylinder rotational speed, cylinder: roll surface speed ratio, number of rolls, and material moisture content. The physical condition of the macerated material was also quantified for each machine configuration. Given certain machine configurations, forage can be macerated with specific energy requirements in the range of conventional forage harvesters. Specific energies were as low as 5.7 J/g wet matter (w.m.) (1.92 hph/ton w.m.) at 11.3 Mg w.m./h (12.4 ton w.m./h).