Design and Justification of a Combined Tillage Machine

Abstract

The tillage of soil with minimum energy consumption can be achieved by breaking the bonds between soil aggregates with tensile deformations. The design of a combined tillage machine is proposed and its technological parameters are justified. The proposed machine includes a frame with a flat working element with a leg, top and bottom rotary agitators with a drive mechanism placed behind a flat working element above each other. The design feature is that the circumferential velocity of a soil-destroying element of the lower rotary agitator is higher than the translational velocity of a machine, and the circumferential velocity of the upper rotary agitator is higher than the circumferential velocity of the lower rotary agitator. Besides, the proposed shape of a rotary agitator made along the Archimedes’ spiral does not allow soil to be collapsed by the back of a cutting edge. This reduces specific energy consumption at high quality of soil loosening. The purpose of the machine is to reduce specific energy consumption of soil treatment. This is achieved by the fact that the axis of rotation of the upper rotary agitator is shifted backwards in the direction of machine movement relative to the axis of rotation of the lower rotary agitator by h = R · sin · (arccos (– 1/λ)), where R – radius of the upper rotary agitator, λ – kinematic parameter characterizing the operation mode of the upper rotary agitator. Thus, the destruction of a pre-stressed soil formation due to tensile stresses caused by the mutual arrangement of working elements and the interconnection of machine operation modes contributes to the reduction of energy consumption.