Harvesting residual biomass and swathe-felling with a mobile chipper
A harvesting machine and auxiliary equipment are being developed to recover logging residues in the form of chips for fuel and fiber, and to deliver such wood into roadside piles at about $11.82/green ton including 30% pretax return on an equipment investment of number470,000. A 575-horsepower tracked mobile chipper equipped with a front-mounted felling bar arranged to cut 6 inches aboveground level across the 9-foot width of the machine fells standing trees (to 12 inches diameter at stump height) and delivers them, along with other logging residues into a three-knife, 550 rev./min. drum chipper mounted immediately behind the felling bar. The felling bar is a 100 to 600 rev./min., 16-inch-diameter, four-knife cylinder extending across the front of the machine near ground level. Chips emerging from the 48-inch-diameter, 47.5-inch-long drum chipper are blown to the rear of the moving machine into one of a pair of self-powered tracked vehicles each carrying a quick-dump chip bin with 10-ton holding capacity. Average speed of the mobile chipper should be one mile per hour over rock-free terrain of less than 30% slope that will support 9 p.s.i. ground pressure. At this speed the harvester will cover about one acre per hour on land averaging 25 tons (green weight) per acre of logging residues in the form of tops and limbs, standing cull trees, and stumps. About 85% of such residue should be recovered as chips. Gross weight of the harvester is about 60,000 pounds. (Refs.1).
- Research Organization:
- Southern For. Exp. Stn., Alexandria, LA.; Nicholson Mfg. Co., Seattle, WA
- OSTI ID:
- 5427400
- Journal Information:
- AIChE Symp. Ser.; (United States), Vol. 76:195; Conference: National Meeting of the American Inst. of Chemical Engineers. 85, Philadelphia, 1978
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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