Design of roller-type smoothing mechanism of automatic razor clam harvesting robot based on discrete element method

Aiming at the existing shellfish harvesting equipment which is basically mechanical fishing, manual screening, and grading, the authors have designed an automatic harvesting robot for razor clams that are farmed for a series of processing. In this paper, a roller-type smoothing mechanism is designed to sort the scattered razor clams for subsequent length screening. Based to the investigation of the razor clams and the existing shellfish harvesting equipment, this paper proposed the design sche me, the establishment of a three-dimensional model, and simplify the use of EDEM discrete element analysis. Through the orthogonal test method, the paddle shape, paddle rotal speed, and the number of paddles are used as independent variables, the razor cla ms passing rate as the dependent variable to operate the optimal analysis. From the analysis, it is concluded that under the conditions that the shape of the paddle is type 2, the rotational speed of the paddle is 180deg/s, and the number of paddles is 4, the highest pass rate for razor clams was 86.6%, and the correctness of the structure was verified according to this result. This study provides a partial theoretical basis for research on razor clam harvesting equipment.