Cutting blades of sugarcane harvester prone to wear and failure due to dynamic loading and contact with soil while, harvesting. In this study, surface hardening and heat treatment was used to improve impact and wear resistance of 18CrNi8 steel to produce the cutting blades of sugarcane harvester. Results showed heat treatment Ca+Q (gas carburizing and quenching) had high hardness while, heat treatment Ca+ (gas carburizing and austempering at 400 °C) had minimum value. Minimum and maximum failure energy belong to Ca+Q+ (gas carburizing, quenching and annealing at 400 °C) and Ca+ (gas carburizing and austempering at 500 °C), respectively. Minimum and maximum wear resistance related to Ca (gas carburizing) and Ca+ , respectively. Impact resistance (toughness) increased with increasing abrasion resistance; so treatments Ca+ , Ca+ and Ca+Q+ (gas carburizing, quenching and annealing at 300 °C) despite having a surface hardness lower than Ca+Q showed a better wear resistance. Due to high abrasion resistance and impact energy of Ca+ , it was introduced good for making the sugarcane harvester blade. The blades are attached to the basecutter using bolts, too much time is wasted while, changing blades. Basecutter dosn’t have fast changing blade mechanisms. Consecutive dulling of the blades need to replace it; that stop and prolonged the sugarcane harvester. In this study, a mechanisms of the blade changing was designed using SolidWorks software to fast changing of the blades. To evaluate field performance of the blades, 5 blades were built for full scale using optimal heat treatment (Ca+ ). The blades performance were evaluated in the field conditions in Haft-Tapeh agro-industry in Khuzestan, Iran. The results showed the optimal heat treatment blades was approximately 3 times better. Optimal blades used 43.2 hectares while, 14.9 hectare for the blades traditionaly used. Working time of the optimal heat treatment blades was 216 hours while, 48.74 hours for the blades traditionaly used. Keywords: basecutter, surface hardening, blade changing, heat treatment, sugarcane.
