Study on Pickup Mechanism and Performance Experiment of Belt-Finger-Type Residual Cotton

This paper presents a rubber strip and spring tine residual cotton pickup device integrating picking, cleaning and conveying functions, developed to tackle the problems of severe waste of residual cotton, low picking efficiency and high impurity content of existing equipment after mechanized cotton harvesting in Xinjiang. Structural parameters of key components, including the pickup mechanism and sawtooth cleaning unit, were designed using dynamic analysis, and the dynamic processes of picking, cleaning and cotton detachment were analyzed to reveal the working principle of the device. A prototype was tested with a three-factor, three-level Box–Behnken design, taking operating speed, pickup drum speed and belt spacing as experimental factors and pickup rate and impurity content as performance indicators. Multi-objective optimization via Design Expert 10.0.4 yielded optimal parameters of 0.67 m/s operating speed, 119.87 mm belt spacing and 251.19 r/min pickup unit speed, achieving a pickup rate of 90.20% and impurity content of 18.27%, with relative errors of 0.74% and 2.4% in verification tests respectively. The results provide technical support for mechanized residual cotton harvesting technology and equipment and offer a new approach for the research and development of picking methods and devices for irregular lumpy flexible materials.