Citation: El Shal, A.M.; Mazrou, Y.S.; El Didamony, M.I. Engineering and Economic Evaluation of a Prototype Fabricated for Harvesting Sugarcane. Designs 2022, 6, 40. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/designs6030040 Academic Editor: Julian D. Booker Received: 4 March 2022 Accepted: 18 April 2022 Published: 20 April 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Article Engineering and Economic Evaluation of a Prototype Fabricated for Harvesting Sugarcane Ahmed Mohamed El Shal 1 , Yasser Sayed Mazrou 2 and Mohamed Ibrahim El Didamony 3, * 1 Department of Agricultural Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt; amelshal@agri.zu.edu.eg 2 Department of Agricultural Economic, Tanta University, Tanta 31527, Egypt; ymazrou@kku.edu.sa 3 Department of Agricultural Engineering, Tanta University, Tanta 31527, Egypt * Correspondence: el-didamony@agr.tanta.edu.eg; Tel.: +20-10-1302-7627 Abstract: A sugarcane harvester prototype was fabricated and evaluated to save time, labor, and har- vesting expenses, which are included in production costs. The single-row harvester prototype fits the functional needs of the physical qualities of sugarcane and was designed to be installed on a tractor. One serrated edge cutter disc, three forward speeds, and three cutter disc speeds were used to evaluate the performance of the fabricated sugarcane harvester. The results of the technical evalua- tion showed that the average forward speed was 5 km h −1 , and the average cutter disc speed was 2000 rpm by a cutter disc with a serrated edge produced the ideal sugarcane harvesting parameters. The actual field capacity, the power required and the specific energy requirements, were determined. Despite that economic evaluation empathies that the combination of 3.5 km h −1 forward speed and a 1000 rpm cutting speed also achieved the highest benefits ($115.12/ha). Keywords: sugarcane; harvester; prototype; single disc; economic evaluation 1. Introduction One of the most important sugar crops is sugarcane worldwide on which many industries depend. Manual harvesting of sugarcane is one of the most traditional meth- ods in many regions of the world. Sugarcane production in the world was amounted about 1949.31 million metric tons [1], the cultivated area of sugarcane in Egypt is about 136,915 hectares producing 15,242,687 tons [2]. Usually, the sugarcane crop cultivation pe- riod is about four to five years and throughout the planting cycle, it is harvested more than once, increased yield and output are primarily dependent on the crop’s service and fertil- ization. In cutting techniques, different types of stalks have different mechanical properties, and the same kind of stalks have different mechanical qualities owing to crop ripeness, moisture content, and planting site. Manual harvesting of sugarcane is the commonly used method. Sugarcane mechanization is an unavoidable alternative for lowering production costs, increasing worker productivity, and reducing the high demand for farmers’ labor. Cultivation quality, particularly in rows spacing 1–1.2 meters irrespective, is ordinarily up to required standards [3]. The sugarcane harvester type 4GZ-9 was chosen as the test prototype for both theory and field tests. The parameters for the base-cutter were adjusted, and the broken rootstock in proportion ratooning sugarcane decreased to 2.11% [4]. Experiments were conducted to determine the mechanical properties and failure of sugarcane stalks under bending force. At bending loads, sugarcane stalks exhibited four types of damage: cracking in the neutral layer, transverse cracking, bottom longitudinal cracking, and irregular cracking, according to the findings. These results are relevant in terms of sugarcane cutting research and blade design [5]. The sugarcane harvester’s advancing speed and the base-rotation cutter’s speed must be matched [6]. The effects of the influencing parameters on the cracked biennial root rate were taken into consideration. The optimization of the cracked rate at the condition of the minimum Designs 2022, 6, 40. https://doi.org/10.3390/designs6030040 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/designs