CNH-Industrial
Leon Claeysstraat 3a
8120 Zedelgem
België
https://www.cnhind-belgium.be
jobs.zedelgem@cnhind.com

Contact
Pieter-Jan Declercq – pieter-jan.declercq@cnhind.com

Category
Mechanics

Context

A Combine Harvester is an agricultural machine that harvests crops like wheat, barley, corn, canola, … The harvester is taking in the crop material through a header and processes it to separate the plants in to different material streams, straw, grain and chaff. The cleaning system of the combine harvester is the location where grains and chaff are separated, making use of mechanical and pneumatic actions.

CNHIndustrial in Zedelgem is developing and manufacturing Combine Harvesters, Forage Harvesters and Large Square Balers. Within CNHI, Zedelgem is recognized as a center of excellence for product design.

Objectives

  • During the product development, more and more upfront virtual analysis is used for defining the cleaning system concept. This means CFD simulations play an increasingly important role in engineering. Because of this, also measurement techniques need updating, where in the past relative comparisons were sufficient, nowadays, simulation results and physical measurements are used in conjunction. This project concerns correlating simulation results with measurements and modernizing the measurement techniques to the current state of the art.
  • In this thesis, you will learn to:
    • Analyze airflow in the combine harvester
    • Work with CFD software to simulate the airflow inside the combine
    • Simulate a complex harvester.
    • Evaluate new concepts for performance and feasibility.