Experimental tests of industrial-scale ripping of soil

Abstract

Ripper attachments should ensure destruction of firm, frozen or rocky soil. Industrial rippers have the ability to forcibly penetrate the working body into soil in contrast to agricultural tillage machines. The ripper attachments have two-sided force closure. The resultant forces acting on the working tool from the side of soil depend on such ripping parameters as ripping depth and angle. Currently, these dependences are mainly studied experimentally. The article presents the experimental results on the ripping resistance force as a case-study of a tractor-mounted dozer–ripper manufactured at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant. The scope of the experiment covers three ripping depths and eight angles. It has been experimentally found that the dependence of the ripping resistance force on each of these parameters is quadratic. The authors propose to study the ripping process using a complex parameter which is a product of the ripping depth and the ripping angle. The use of the complex parameter in the two-factor analysis allowed reducing the degree of the studied dependence while preserving the required accuracy. The complex parameter reflects the relationship between the design parameters of the ripper tooth, ripping depth and angle. The article shows that the vertical penetration resistance linearly depends on the horizontal traction resistance. The authors obtained this dependence for loam of medium density. The authors’ approach makes it possible undertake optimization of ripping process subject to soil type.