Abstract:Aiming at the problems that the seedling tray lifting operation during the hardening stage of rice seedling raising mainly relies on manual work, which leads to high labor intensity and low production efficiency, a rotary poking-tooth type seedling tray lifting device for factory-style rice seedling raising was designed. The device mainly consisted of a rotary poking-tooth type seedling tray lifting mechanism, a lifting and conveying mechanism, and a traveling mechanism. During the forward movement of the machine, the rotary poking-tooth type seedling tray lifting mechanism continuously poked up the seedling trays, which moved backward along the poking-tooth roller and were then transported to the rear by the lifting and conveying mechanism. Through dynamic analysis of the seedling tray lifting operation process, parameters such as the number of poking-teeth, the length of poking-teeth, and the inclination angle of the lifting and conveying mechanism were determined, and the key factors affecting the seedling tray lifting effect and the range of main parameters were clarified. Taking the poking-tooth rotary speed, poking-tooth included angle and speed ratio of the device as test factors, and the seedling tray lifting success rate and seedling tray damage rate as evaluation indicators, the Box - Behnken experimental design method was adopted, and three-factor and three-level orthogonal experiments were carried out by using the soil trough test bench. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and response surface analysis were performed on the test results by Design-Expert software to reveal the influence rules of test factors and their interactions on the operating performance of the seedling tray lifting device, and multi-objective solution and optimization were carried out on the constructed linear regression model. The results showed that the optimal seedling tray lifting effect was achieved when the poking-tooth rotary speed was 45. 12 r/min, the poking-tooth included angle was 88. 28°, and the speed ratio was 1. 49. Verification tests were carried out with the optimized parameters. The results indicated that the average seedling tray lifting success rate was 93. 33% and the average seedling tray damage rate was 1.67%, which met the requirements of seedling tray lifting operation during the hardening stage of rice seedling raising.