Abstract

Tillage is an operation performed to obtain a desirable soil structure for a seedbed. A granular structure is desirable to allow rapid infiltration and good retention of rainfall, to provide adequate air capacity and exchange within the soil and to minimize resistance to root penetration. Rotary tiller or rotavator (derived from rotary cultivator) is a tillage machine designed for preparing land by breaking the soil with the help of rotating blades suitable for sowing seeds (without overturning of the soil). Nowadays, utilization of rotary tillers has been increased in agricultural applications because of simple structure and high efficiency. However in a rotary tiller, blades are the main critical parts which engaged with soil to prepare the land. These blades interact with soil in a different way than normal plows that are subjected to impact load and high friction which ultimately creates unbalancing and non-uniform forces on the rotary tiller. This result wears in the blades. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize the design of blade so that wear will minimum and thereby enhanced the service life. The present research has dealt with design of “L” type blade for tractor drawn Rotary tiller or Rotavator using Specific Work Method (SWM).

Highlights

  • A rotary tiller is a specialized mechanical tool used to plough the land by a series of blades which are used to swirl up the earth

  • Utilization of rotary tillers has been increased in agricultural applications because of simple structure and high efficiency for this type of tillage implements

  • The specific work of rotary tiller is defined as the work carried on by rotary tiller at each rotation of tillage blades per the volume of broken soil, which could be calculated by the following equation [13]:

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Summary

Introduction

A rotary tiller is a specialized mechanical tool used to plough the land by a series of blades which are used to swirl up the earth. Proper design of these blades is necessary in order to increase their working life time and reduce the farming costs [11]. Working life time of the blades can be increased by a suitable design according to the soil type and soil condition. The object of this study was to design suitable rotary tiller blade design optimization using finite element analysis method to increase the useful life of the tiller blade in order to reduce the idle time required to replace the blade periodically during soil preparation shown in Figures 1 and 2. Because of the high peak torques developed during each cut, it is important to stagger the blades in the different courses, with equal angular displacement between them, so no two blades strike the soil at the same time

Materials and Methods
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