16. October 2020

Follow-Up Combine Harvester

Bodenschmiede-finalist improves his combine harvester of the future

How have the finalists of the Bodenschmiede fared since the end of the ideas competition? Philip Flierl, developer of the “Mähseparator”, his futuristic combine harvester, in conversation with Farm & Food. You can check out his live pitch from summer 2020 here (German).

By Sarah Liebigt

Farm & Food: Please introduce yourself and your project.

Philip Flierl: With pleasure. My name is Philipp Flierl. I am studying mechanical engineering in the third semester at OTH in Regensburg for my master’s degree. In summer semester 2019 I wrote my bachelor thesis about the optimization of a stripper. Since that time several development projects are running on this topic and we try to establish a new harvesting method.

How are you and your project doing?

Basically our project is doing relatively well. We haven’t experienced any restrictions due to Corona either. As far as the project is concerned, our main focus was to examine the test plant and the functional models in detail. That means we use high-speed images to analyze individual separation processes and to apply (or convert) the findings gained to the later prototypes.

What adversities did you encounter during development?

Problems in the project have arisen due to the process itself. Through the high-speed recordings, we discovered that there are also different problems. You can roughly divide them into three parts: Firstly, the separation itself, and secondly, the separation of the individual ears. Another major topic is the spraying losses that occur during the separation process. The spraying losses are difficult to evaluate because they are always dependent on the moisture. They can be as high as 50 percent. We are currently trying to overcome these problems and find new solutions.

What is the next step with your combine harvester?

The concrete further procedure is that we will continue to design our project as before with the various project groups and will always look for solutions or try to optimize the whole thing. After this one year, I would like to finish my studies with the master’s thesis. After the studies, we will be dependent on state aid in order to continue this project.