The CRC for Forestry has released a new bulletin that investigated the productivity, fuel consumption and impact of log size on an infield chipping operation.
The bulletin (No. 24) is titled “Machine productivity of roadside chipping in a thinned pine plantation”, and the author was Mohammad Ghaffariyan. The research was carried out in a flat Pinus radiata compartment near Mt Gambier in South Australia, with a cut-to-length harvesting system consisting of harvester and forwarder producing logs at roadside, which were then chipped by a Morbark B12 truck-mounted chipper. A Hitachi ZAxis 250L loader was used to feed the chipper. Logs were chipped straight into trucks with semi-trailers. The average tree size harvested was 0.12 m3.
The results showed that average chipper productivity was 59.4 tonnes per productive machine hour (PMH). Larger diameter logs resulted in higher chipper productivity. The chipper had fuel consumption figures of 72.6 litres (19.2 gal) per PMH, and the loader 25.1 litres (6.6 gal) per PMH. Waiting for chip trucks resulted in many delays at the operation. To access the bulletin, please contact Mark Brown at mbrown2@usc.edu.au or access the CRC website at www.crcforestry.com.au
The bulletin (No. 24) is titled “Machine productivity of roadside chipping in a thinned pine plantation”, and the author was Mohammad Ghaffariyan. The research was carried out in a flat Pinus radiata compartment near Mt Gambier in South Australia, with a cut-to-length harvesting system consisting of harvester and forwarder producing logs at roadside, which were then chipped by a Morbark B12 truck-mounted chipper. A Hitachi ZAxis 250L loader was used to feed the chipper. Logs were chipped straight into trucks with semi-trailers. The average tree size harvested was 0.12 m3.
The results showed that average chipper productivity was 59.4 tonnes per productive machine hour (PMH). Larger diameter logs resulted in higher chipper productivity. The chipper had fuel consumption figures of 72.6 litres (19.2 gal) per PMH, and the loader 25.1 litres (6.6 gal) per PMH. Waiting for chip trucks resulted in many delays at the operation. To access the bulletin, please contact Mark Brown at mbrown2@usc.edu.au or access the CRC website at www.crcforestry.com.au