Rigid lugged wheel for conventional agricultural wheeled tractors – Optimising traction performance and wheel–soil interaction in field operations

Experimental Investigation of Traction Power Transfer Indices of Farm-Tractors for Efficient Energy Utilization in Soil Tillage and Cultivation Operations

“…Eventually, it will help to avoid energy losses, economic losses, and soil compaction in agriculture. The tractive performance and wheel soil interaction of RLW are already reported [12,26].…”

“…The soil texture type was silty clay loam. Table 1 shows the surveyed data of soil physical and mechanical properties of the experimental field, measurement methods were explained in a previous study [12]. According to the study requirement of field tractor performance related to traction and power transfer efficiency, energy efficiency and field productivity, three field experiments were planned with the following field layouts (Table 2).…”

“…Table 3 presents the specifications and operational parameters of the tractor and traction devices (drive wheels), a previous study discussed and presented the source of data and measurement methods [12]. For tillage and traction tests, a standard moldboard plow with five bottom shears was used.…”

“…A study reported 575 million liters of annual fuel loss in the USA due to the mismanagement of off-road vehicles at the soil-wheel interfaces in agricultural applications alone [3]. The energy lost in wheel soil interaction and the driving process is used to wear the tires and to compact the soil that causes detrimental effects on crop production [12,13].…”

“…Soil compaction alleviation requires intensive deep tillage that has a significant effect on power requirement and fuel consumption [14,15], in the process heavyweight tractors with poor traction again accelerate the compaction process and energy consumption, and this vicious cycle of soil compaction and energy loss is kept going on [12]. Fuel prices are going high day by day, the abundant fuel consumption and energy losses in different mechanized cultivation operations are unviable economically and ecologically in farming systems.…”