Custo operacional de uma colhedora cana-de-açúcar com a consideração da interação entre a velocidade e as perdas na colheita.

Abstract

The use of harvesters in sugar cane has been increasing due to is higher operational capacity and lower cost in relation to manual cut in some conditions. However, it is of mayor importance to follow the losses that occur during the operation because its impact on the profit. Few studies have been done over this matter. Due to the importance of the subject the aim of this current work was to evaluate the influence of the work velocity in the operational costs of a harvester taking in account the total visible losses. For this purpose a model was developed using an electronic sheet and the visible losses during harvesting were obtained by means on a field experiment. The results showed that there is an ideal range of velocity in order to obtain lower operation costs when losses are considered.