الفهرس 
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Abstract
All experiments of prickly pear cactus chopping machine were carried out and tested at the workshop of Agriculture Engineering Research Institute (AEnRI), Agriculture Research Center (ARC), Dokki, Giza, Egypt through years of 2020 and 2021 to study some parameters affecting on the machine. The objectives of the present investigation are to 1- Develop a simple machine for removing thorns and cutting a prickly pear cactus. 2- Investigate the performance of the developed machine. 3- Evaluate the developed machine from the economic point of view. Two experimental groups were carried out. The first experiment was run under four different feeding drum speeds of 140, 170, 190 and 215 rpm (0.73, 0.89, 0.99 and 1.13 m/s), two different thorn removal brushes states (stationary and moving) and three different clearances between thorn removal brushes of C1, C2, and C3 (1, 1.5 and 2 cm). The second experiment was run under four different cutting drum speeds of 700, 825, 1000 and 1200 rpm (14.7, 17.3, 20.9 and 25.1 m/s) and three different methods of knives rows arrangements (Ka, Kb and Kc), under the optimum feeding rate of 1.94 Mg/h which obtained from the first experiment. Evaluation of the prickly pear cactus chopping machine was carried out taking into consideration feeding rate, thorns removal efficiency, machine productivity, average of cutting length, coefficient of variation, required power, energy requirement and operational cost. It is recommended to operate the prickly pear cactus chopping machine under the following conditions:1- Feeding drums at revolving speeds 170 rpm. 2- Using brushes state of moving brushes.3- Clearance between the brushes 1.5 cm. 4- Drum cutting speed 825 rpm. 5- Using methods of (Kc) knives rows arrangements.