• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 2000.11c
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• pp.613-622
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• 2000

Watering operation for oyster mushroom growing houses is regarded as drudgery and time consuming farm operation for growers. Most of mushroom growing beds in oyster mushroom growing houses are designed as two-row with four floor beds, therefore the watering and ventilation between the bed floors are much difficult for farmers because of its structural design. The study aimed to reduce the watering operation and improve the mushroom growing environment through the humidification and air supply on mushroom growing beds. Results showed that appropriate size of nozzle is between 0.8~0.5ml/s for the humidification and higher than the 2.0ml/s for the watering. The optimum water supply pressure was regarded as between 1.0~2.0MPa and the uniform distribution of droplet on the bed showed on air flow speed of 14m/s. The prototype was equipped with twin nozzle with. the humidification nozzle of 0.85ml/s and watering nozzle of 5.0ml/s, and the air blast fan with the air speed of 10m/sec in each air spout. In the field test in a practical scale mushroom growing house, it was well operated dependant on the set desire by a electric control unit. The machine can be practically used as air blast watering and air blast humidification for oyster mushroom growing farms without manual.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2003

This study was carried cut to get basic data of troubles in starting and supply of farm diesel engines in cold winter. The results of the study are summarized as follows: 1. As the result of farm survey. the proportions of farms which had starting problems or troubles in fuel supply in cold winter for the last 5 years were 38% for the farms with power-tillers and 32% for the farms with tractors. Most of the farms which had starting problems or troubles in fuel supply in cold winter used light oil for summer. spring or fall rather than for winter. 2. As the result of fuel supply test, fuel supply was stopped at -6$^{\circ}C$ and -18$^{\circ}C$ for summer light oil and winter light oil. respectively 3. The lowest temperatures of winter light oil for starting engine were -7.5$^{\circ}C$ for power-tiller. -12.5$^{\circ}C$ for tractor of 38ps, and -17.5$^{\circ}C$ for tractor of 45ps. which were 5~7.5$^{\circ}C$ lower than that of summer light oil. 4. The performance of engine starting and the trouble of fuel supply system at lower temperature were significantly improved by using winter hight oil rather than summer light oil.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 2002

This study was conducted to develop a dry paddy seeder of strip tillage. The prototype is 8 rows drill seeder, which is composed of a strip tillage, sowing and fertilizing device, and pressing wheels to do the strip tillage, sowing, fertilizing, and draining ditch, simultaneously. The performances of prototype was evaluated through the investigation of fuel consumption, tillage torque, ratio of soil breaking, and economical efficiency and the results were compared with these of a dry paddy seeder that needs whole tillage. According to the USDA textural classification, the experiment field was composed of sandy loam which consisted of 56.8 of sand, 30.2 of silt and 13.0 % of clay, respectively. Its hardness ranged from 952 to 1,673 kPa depending on the soil depth, and its soil moisture content was 24.9%(d. b.) Fuel consumption of the prototype was 5,015g/hr at 2,000 rpm of engine, which was consequently 64% smaller than that of the conventional dry paddy seeder. For the tillage torque, it ranged from 132 to 206N$.$m depending on the tillage pitch, which was 10∼30% smaller than that of the conventional dry paddy seeder. The ratio of soil braking of the prototype was 87∼98%, whereas that of the conventional dry paddy seeder was 80∼97%. The working performance of the prototype was surveyed to be 3.8hours/ha, which was about 5 times higher than that of the conventional dry paddy seeder. The cost reduction of 26.3% was obtained by using the prototype.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.129-138
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• 1993

The shortage of agricultural labour due to industrial growth has greatly induced the mechanization in Korean agriculture. However small and scattered land holdings have been the main constraints in the process of mechanization. This paper describes the interrelationships of farm land structure, machinery selection and machinery operation areas. The sandy silt loam irrigated paddy land having single crop a year was selected as a target areas for this study. Machine operation cost is greatly influenced by operation period, plot geometry and operation area. On the improved geometry plots, optimal machine size increases slowly with increase in operation area. Operable area increases due to increased effective machine capacity on better geometry plot. The difference between the effects of operation period and plot geometry is that in the former case, the cost reduction is caused by delay in increase of machine size, whereas in the latter case timeliness cost is reduced by increase ffective capacity. The effect of farmland consolidation is greater on small plots than that on big plots. Increasing wage rates have induced the adoption of more labor saving machinery. Bigger labor saving machines require enlargement of operation area and larger plots through improvement in farm land structure. Machine cost on poor plot geometry increases more rapidly than that on the good plot geometry and as operation area increases machine cost reduces significantly. It is concluded that the development of agricultural mechanization ion Korea will depend on the improvement in farm land structure and enlargement of operation area.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.335-340
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• 2002

Recently, in Korea, round bale wrapping silage made by fresh rice straw are partially utilized. The colors of stretch film using far wrapping the fresh rice straw round bale are white, green and black. The light transmittance of green and white color stretch film was not founded the difference. However, the light transmittance of black color stretch film was largely difference of two stretch films. This study was carried out to measure qualities of fresh rice straw wrapping silage by softening processing of fresh rice straw and colors effects of wrapping stretch film. The analyzed factors were the light transmittance of stretch film, variation of the temperature in fresh rice straw round bale and qualities of the silage in crude protein, ADF, NDF, organic acid, etc. It was difficult to find in this study the colors effects of stretch film on silage qualities by the silage wrapping. But, when make fresh rice straw wrapping silage, wrapping silage fermentation effect goes well more if handle softening the fresh rice straw.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.525-530
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• 2003

This study was carried out to develop a vacuum nozzle seeder for the automation of large seeds sowing of fruit vegetables and rootstocks. Moreover, the seeding efficiency was examined to find the optimum operating condition considering high precision seeding. The important operating factors for high seeding rate were typically nozzle diameter and absorbing vacuum pressure. The optimum nozzle diameters were found 1.5, 1.5 and 2.0 mm for Chambak, Tuktozwa and Hukjong while the optimum vacuum pressures were 8.0㎪, 10.6㎪ and 5.3㎪, respectively. Under the optimum operating condition, the results indicated that the maximum seeding rates were 97.6％, 98.8％ and 97.6％ respectively for Chambak Tuktozwa and Hukjong. The vibrating acceleration of the hopper did not make any significant effects on the seeding rate when the vacuum pressure reached 8.0㎪ and the sowing rate became higher with lighter seed. As the seed became heavier, the larger diameter of nozzle was recommended 1.5mm of the nozzle diameter was found to be applied for the experimental seeds. The vacuum pressure was also found 8.0㎪ - 13.3㎪ at that time.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.227-232
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• 2000

A natural air in-bin grain dryer with a grain circulator was developed for on farm use. Natural air drying test for rough rice was carried out to evaluate drying rate, uniformity of moisture content distribution in grain bed and energy consumption. It took 10 days to dry 8 ton of paddy rice from 21.9%(w.b) of moisture contents to 16.7%(w.b), by prototype dryer and the average drying rate was 0.52%/day. The uniformity of moisture content after drying was superior to a conventional natural air dryer in which grains were not mixed during drying periods. The dryer performance evaluation index was 738.3kJ/(kg.water), which was more effective than that of grain circulation type hot air dryer(3,500∼5,000 kJ/kg.water)

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.571-578
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• 2001

Production of green pepper has increased for ten years in Korea, as customer's preference of a pepper tuned to fiesta one. This study was conducted to develop an on-line fading algorithm of green pepper using machine vision and aimed to develop the automatic on-line grading and sorting system. The machine vision system was composed of a professive scan R7B CCD camera, a frame grabber and sets of 3-wave fluorescent lamps. The length and curvature, which were main quality factors of a green pepper were measured while removing the stem region. The first derivative of the thickness profile was used to remove the stem area of the segmented image of the pepper. A new boundary was generated after the stem was removed and a baseline of a pepper which was used for the curvature determination was also generated. The developed algorithm showed that the accuracy of the size measurement was 86.6% and the accuracy of the bent was 91.9%. Processing time spent far grading was around 0.17 sec per pepper.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.489-496
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• 2000

This study was conducted in order to find an ideal working fluid kind and a proper filling amount in the heat pipe as well as an inclined angle of heat pipe when they are placed to recover exhaust gas heat in the hot air heater. Followings are the findings of this research. 1. Of the four different working fluids-gasoline kerosene distilled water and acetone-acetone filled heat pipe showed the best performance giving out more homogeneous temperature profile on the radiating part than the kerosene and gasoline heat pipe an carrying out heat transmitting function better than the distilled water heat pipe by 10~2$0^{\circ}C$ higher on the radiating part. Acetone would be a good choice for recycling of exhaust gas heat in the hot air heater. 2. Of the filling amount of working fluid inside the heat pipes dry-out situations possible caused by insufficient filling were found in the filling amount of 5, 7.5 and 10% heat pipes as heat supply rate increases gradually in the range of 50 to 15kJ/sec. but no dry-out and stabilized heat transmitting performance occurred in the heat pipes of 12.5 and 15% filling at the same heat supply rate. It recommends that filling amount shall exceed 12.5% at least with the working fluids of this experiment. 3. The test revealed that the heat transmitting performance of heat pipe was more affected by filling amount rather than inclined angle.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.341-348
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• 2002

Quality evaluation of red ginsengs is determined by outer shape and inner qualities. Especially, the inner qualities are main grading criteria. Currently, red ginsengs are classified into 3-grades; heaven, earth and good. The best heaven grade must not include inner holes and sponge tissues. This study was conducted to develop a red ginseng sorting system using x-ray image processing technique. Because of lens characteristic, gray values of the central region in the x-ray image are higher and gradually decreased towards the edge regions. This difference of gray values gives trouble in segmentation and detection of inner holes in red ginseng image, so preprocessing technique is necessary. The preprocessing was done by subtracting source image from an empty background image. But, simple subtraction was not quite appropriate because of too small contrast between inner holes and sound part. Scaled subtraction images were obtained by multiplying all gray values by some numbers. However this method could not help to set threshold value because the gray values of root part are generally lower than body part when red ginseng is exposed to the x-ray. To determine threshold value for detecting inner holes, an algorithm was developed by increasing overall gray values of less clear images.