The mechanical mounder technological parameters justification

For intensive reforestation, machines should be used that will not only reduce the time and labour required for artificial reforestation, but also reduce the need for subsequent young stand treatment (early tending and early pre-commercial thinning). These machines include machines for creating the humus mounds with mineral soil cover - for example a domestic rotary tool ORM-1.5 or its foreign counterparts - a two-row mounder of the Bracke M24.a type and a three-row mounder of the Bracke M36.b type. Petrozavodsk State University (PetrSU) has developed the design of a new two-row forestry machine for creating humus mounds with mineral soil cover - the mechanical mounder MK-2 (RF patent No. 141061, IPC A01G 23/00). The paper discusses the methodology for calculating the main technological parameters of the MK-2 mechanical mounder machine: the mounder machine rotors angular velocity, the mounds and depressions parameters formed by the mounder rotors (height, depth and length); the gear ratio between the power take-off shaft of the tractor and the mounder rotors' value. The calculations established that the main design parameter of mounder MK-2 – the rotor rotation speed – must be four times less than the forestry unit translational speed (tractor + mounder) to achieve a common step in the mounds preparation about 1.2 m. The developed machine further studies (the MK-2 mounder) are recommended in the following directions: the MK-2 mounder design parameters refinement based on the testing prototype results in the field; technology development for the MK-2 mounder rational use for reforestation.