MODELING OF CUTTING FORCE FOR PALM OIL FRONDS

Cutting oil palm fronds is an important activity in the harvesting and upkeep of this tree, and this is currently done manually, meaning that it is subject to uncertain labor supplies and low efficiency. Manual cutting is primarily done with a harvesting knife, using a linear motion. Mechanization of this action has been achieved based on an oscillating cutting motion, which is prone to high levels of vibration and inefficiency due to the accelerating and decelerating motion of the oscillating mass. There is therefore a need for a technique based on a circular cutting motion, in order to reduce the power consumption of the mechanized cutter, but there is a lack of in-depth research on the mechanics of the cutting force for palm oil fronds using a circular saw. In this study, we explore the effects of the feed rate, rotation speed, frond width, and entrance angle on the cutting force when using a circular saw, and an equation relating these parameters is derived to calculate the cutting force based on experimental results. No significant difference is found between cutting force models for oil palm fronds (0.92 < R-2 < 0.99, P < 0.05) under different cutting conditions.