摘要：When harvesting dead plants the reapers and mowers are equipped with crop lifters, which lift and feed dead plants (stems) to the cutter. High-quality work of well-known crop lifters is not always ensured due to poor following the relief of the mowed area. Therefore, the aim of the study was to improve the design of a stem lifter of a mower or header and to justify its parameters experimentally. The floating crop lifter is proposed for the use. It consists of a runner pivotally attached to the base, and the base is attached to the finger bar of the header cutter. A lifting pen is rigidly fixed to the runner at an angle of 35°. Between the base of the runner and the lifting pen, a gas strut with excess pressure is installed. The manufactured laboratory unit made it possible to carry out experimental studies. Implementation of the experimental design and computer processing of the obtained results made it possible to justify the optimal values of a number of indicators of the design of the crop lifter. The smallest material losses (less than 1%) were observed at coded values of the factors: X1 = 0...0.5; X2 = -0.25...0.25; X3 = -0.5...0. This corresponded to the natural values of the studied factors: runner length l = 450-500 mm; the load of the gas strut P = 45-55 N; operating speed of the unit υ = 1.2-1.6 m/s. The obtained exponential dependence on the parabolic function of these factors adequately describes the experimental results.
