Gan-Mor, S., Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr, Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr
Zacharin, A., Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr, Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr
Galili, N., Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr, Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr
Feller, R., Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr, Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr
Margolin, E., Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr, Inst of Agricultural Engineering, Bet Dagan, Isr

A new technique which enables separation of both stones and soil clods from potatoes, after mechanical harvesting, was investigated. The general concept was to modify a commercial clod separator which incorporates bouncing of the potatoes and the clods on a cylindrical drum, where the difference in the restitution coefficient, e//r, between the two products was 0. 4. Stones were not separated well by this unit because they presented e//r similar to that of the potatoes. Ways to reduce the e//r of firm bodies - such as stones, without affecting soft bodies - such as potatoes or clods, were investigated. A technique based upon the energy absorption of a colliding body by dynamic bending of an elastic plate was proposed and later evaluated analytically and experimentally. A plate configuration which enables reduction of e//r for the stones without a noticable change for the potatoes and clods was obtained.