Drawbar performance of a power tiller on a sandy loam soil of the Nadia district of West Bengal

Abstract

A 9.69 kW power tiller's drawbar performance was tested by using a drawbar loading vehicle consisting of a power tiller with a mould board (MB) plough. A spring-loaded dynamometer was attached between the tested power tiller and the loading vehicle to measure the drawbar pull. The drawbar pull was changed from 0.905 kN to 2.232 kN by varying the operating depth of the MB plough. Empirical equations were developed to correlate the drawbar pull to the wheel slip, drawbar power, fuel consumption, and drawbar specific fuel consumption (DBSFC), and one was developed to correlate the drawbar power to the wheel slip. The wheel slip increased exponentially with an increase in the drawbar pull and drawbar power. A maximum wheel slippage of 48.94% was observed at a 2.232 kN drawbar pull and 0.763 kW drawbar power. A second-degree polynomial equation was found to correlate the drawbar pull to the drawbar power, fuel consumption, and DBSFC. The maximum drawbar power was found as 0.763 kW at a 2.02 kN drawbar pull, which was 7.87% of the rated engine power. The fuel consumption increased by 66.93%, and the DBSFC reduced by 10.56% due to the increase of the drawbar pull from 0.905 kN to 2.232 kN. The lowest DBSFC of 2.01 kg·kWh<sup>–1</sup> was found at a 2.232 kN drawbar pull.