Design and experimental analysis of bamboo cableway skidding transportation equipment

In response to the current shortage of equipment and difficulties in transporting bamboo from hilly and mountainous areas, as well as the fact that existing transportation equipment, especially cableways, are mostly simply modified from wood cable equipment, resulting in unstable effects, long installation cycles, and lack of safety guarantees, a mobile bamboo cableway skidding transportation equipment specifically designed for mountain bamboo forests has been designed.

A modular design approach was adopted, integrating mechanical modeling of the mobile host unit, transport car and cable components with control system development. Key structural components were optimized through finite element analysis, while kinematics and dynamics simulations validated the transport process. A quadratic regression orthogonal rotation combination experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of transport speed, the total mass of cable car and bamboo, and cableway inclination angle on operational safety.

The results indicate that cableway inclination angle exerts the most significant influence on transportation safety, followed by the total mass and transport speed. Safe transportation to roadside transfer points was achieved under the following thresholds: inclination angles≤25.7°, total mass≤600 kg, and speed≤4.0 m/s.

When the inclination angle of the cableway is 16.3°-21.0°, the total mass of the cable car and bamboo is 400-550 kg, and the speed of the cable car is 2.6-3.2 m/s, the safety rate of descent is relatively high, which can achieve efficient transportation of mountain bamboo and meet the needs of on-site applications. Notably, its lightweight modular design enables rapid assembly and disassembly, while the self-charging cable car ensures prolonged operational endurance. This work provides a novel technical solution for mountainous bamboo transportation, addressing critical gaps in current forestry equipment.