*Article* **Design and Experiments of a Double-Cutterbar Combine Header Used in Wheat Combine Harvesters**

**Linghe Yuan, Mingming Lan, Xun He, Wenhe Wei, Wanzhang Wang \* and Zhe Qu**

College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China; linghe\_y@126.com (L.Y.); lanming@henau.edu.cn (M.L.); hexun@henau.edu.cn (X.H.); wenhe@stu.henau.edu.cn (W.W.); quzhe071171@henau.edu.cn (Z.Q.)

**\*** Correspondence: wangwz@henau.edu.cn

**Abstract:** To solve the problems of congestion and increased power consumption of wheat combine harvesters (WCHs) caused by excessive feed rate, this paper proposes a method to reduce the feed rate by decreasing the feed length of the stalk and designs a double-cutterbar combine header (DCH). Using the threshing test bench and taking the feed rate, the feed length of the stalk, and the speed of the tangential threshing rotor as the influencing factors and the conveying time as the index, the influence of different parameters on the conveying performance was analyzed. The optimal parameters were obtained: the feed rate was 8 kg/s, the feed length of the stalk was 380 mm, the speed of the cutting drum was 554 r/min, and the conveying time was 8.089 s. The optimized parameter combination was tested and verified, and the test results show that the relative error with the predicted value was 0.198%, proving the reliability of the optimized parameters. The critical components of the DCH were designed, the movement process of the profiling mechanism was simulated using ADAMS software, and the structural dimensions of the profiling mechanism were determined. The field performance test of the WCH with a DCH was carried out. The results showed that the loss rate and stubble height met the operation quality requirements. At the same operation speed, the fuel consumption was 11.2% less than that of the WCH with a conventional header, providing a technical reference for the efficient harvest of the WCHs.

**Keywords:** WCH; DCH; feed length of the stalk; conveying performance; fuel consumption
