INTERACTIVE COMPUTER APPLICATION FOR PREDICTING PERFORMANCE INDICATORS OF A TRACTOR-CHISEL PLOW SYSTEM IN C-SHARP ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

An interactive computer application in C-Sharp language was developed to predict the performance indicator of a tractor-chisel plow system. Moreover, the purpose of such application was to aid agricultural engineers in the field of farm machinery management to select suitable inputs to make proper matching of a tractor and a chisel plow. The required equations were formulated using the obtained weights from a trained artificial neural network model that trained using actual data field experiments. The application predicts actual field capacity (ha/h) and fuel consumption per unit area (lit/ha). Tractor loading factor was the main issue in the present application since it was used as a regulator for determination of the required draft. The application displays a chart during simulation to show the intersect point between both specific fuel consumption calculated by the application and specific fuel consumption calculated using the equation of ASABE standard. Overall energy efficiency in the range of 10–20% was acted to select the optimum values of the affecting parameters. The application outputs include theoretical field capacity, actual field capacity, field efficiency, fuel consumption per unit area, fuel consumption, energy required based on fuel consumption, draft, unit draft per unit plow width, unit draft per unit plowing area, draft power (drawbar power), energy required based on draft requirements, loafing factor, calculated specific fuel consumption, specific fuel consumption based on ASABE equation and overall energy efficiency. For validation the developed C-Sharp application, data from previous study was utilized for chisel plow- tractor system operated in specific condition, and the simulated draft was 16.73 kN (calculated specific fuel consumption and specific fuel consumption based on ASABE equation was 0.53 lit/kWh) and the loading factor was 0.62. The relative error between actual and simulated drat was 16%. The developed application is appropriate for farm machinery management, educational and research purposes. It is user-friendly and could be run on Windows desktop without C-Sharp environment. The application could be edited and/or updated to predict performance indicators of other tractor-tillage implement systems.