ABSTRACT
The main objective of the present investigation was to manufacture and evaluate the performance of a tractor-mounted machine for harvesting olive. The performance of the manufactured harvesting machine was experimentally studied under four different PTO speeds (300, 450, 600 and 750 rpm), three different vibration amplitudes (10, 15 and 20 cm) and three different vertical height clamp positions on the tree (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 m). Evaluation of the manufactured machine was carried out taking into consideration harvester productivity, harvesting losses, specific energy and operational cost. The experimental results revealed that harvester productivity (26.7 tree/h), harvesting losses (1.8 %), specific energy (0.674 kW.h/tree) and operational cost (343.64 L.E./fed (3.152 L.E./tree)) were found using the manufactured harvesting machine at 300 rpm PTO speed, 15 cm vibration amplitude and 1.0 m vertical height clamp position on the tree.
Keywords: Olive harvesting machine, productivity, losses, vibration amplitude, vertical height clamp position, clamping device.