Artificial Soil Environment Justification for Laboratory Studies of Wear and Traction Characteristics of Soil-Cutting Working Bodies

• Main Authors: I. V. Liskin, A. V. Mironova
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Federal Scientific Agroengineering Centre VIM 2020-09-01
• Series: Сельскохозяйственные машины и технологии
• Subjects: artificial soil environment; tillage working bodies blades wear; fallow and old arable land; plant residues; traction resistance
• Online Access: https://www.vimsmit.com/jour/article/view/393

The authors presented the results of laboratory studies of artificial soil based on sand-paraffin mixtures, reflecting the physical and mechanical soil properties with the presence of plant residues. They conducted tests to determine the soil-cutting working bodies’ traction resistance during tillage with the presence of root and crop residues.(Research purpose) To substantiate the parameters of an artificial soil environment containing models of root and crop residues for laboratory studies of the wear and traction characteristics of soil-cutting working bodies operated on post-harvest, virgin and fallow farmland.(Materials and methods) An artificial soil environment was developed by introducing filamentous components 5-25 millimeters long into its composition.(Results and discussion) The authors determined the criteria of geometric similarity “model – nature” for the soil conditions of the Non-Black Earth Zone of Russia. It was found that the equality of the criteria “model – nature” for laboratory research of fallow lands occurred when the length of the  filamentous components was from 20 mm and the concentration was from 20 segments per unit cross-sectional area when passing 0.1 meter in artificial soil. It was revealed that for modeling old arable lands, the length of the filamentous components should exceed 5 millimeters, the concentration should be from 10 segments per 0.1 meter of the length of passage in artificial soil. The authors conducted field tests of arable units on fallow and old arable lands.(Conclusions) The authors found out that the equality of the geometric criteria for the similarity of the artificial soil environment and real soil conditions allowed laboratory studies of the wear and traction characteristics of the tillage working bodies’ blades. It was determined that more than 30 percent of energy costs were accounted for by breaking the root system of the vegetation cover on virgin and fallow lands.