Abstract
ABSTRACT The technological innovation in agriculture seeks to improve the performance of mechanized assemblies and, currently, rubber half-tracks are a valuable solution for agricultural tractors, combining traction performance and less soil compaction. The objective of the experiment was to evaluate the operational and energy performance of double wheeled versus rubber half-tracked agricultural tractors in the soybean sowing. The experiment was conducted in a strip-plot design with a double factorial arrangement (2×3). The first factor consisted of a tractor with double wheels on the front and rear axles versus a tractor with single wheels on the front axle and rubber half-tracks on the rear axle, while the second factor consisted of three different gears, with five replications, totaling 30 experimental units. The collected data were subjected to analysis of variance and, when significant, to the Tukey test. The sowing operation carried out with the half-tracked tractor was the most efficient in most of the analyzed parameters, allowing higher operational and energy efficiency in the soybean sowing.
Highlights
Several researchers have studied the use of tracks for locomotion of large vehicles in the past decades, especially steel tracks (Rabbani et al, 2011), not taking into account modern construction projects and the new technologies embedded in current agricultural machines.The tire has stood out since the discovery of rubber due to its high versatility and practicality in the agricultural environment, being improved over the years, while tracks have been used little in agricultural operations due to its complexity (Molari et al, 2012)
The slippage index, which is closely related to the wheels, is among the various parameters that can be analyzed in the performance of the agricultural tractor
This study aimed to evaluate the operational and energy performance of double wheeled versus rubber halftracked agricultural tractors in the soybean sowing operation
Summary
Several researchers have studied the use of tracks for locomotion of large vehicles in the past decades, especially steel tracks (Rabbani et al, 2011), not taking into account modern construction projects and the new technologies embedded in current agricultural machines.The tire has stood out since the discovery of rubber due to its high versatility and practicality in the agricultural environment, being improved over the years, while tracks have been used little in agricultural operations due to its complexity (Molari et al, 2012). Because of compaction problems and the need for great traction performance, the agricultural tractor has been following the constant modernization of the field, mainly regarding architecture and components (Renius 1994; Lankenau et al, 2019). The use of rubber tracks in agriculture has gradually increased, unlike the iron tracks, promoting less compaction and higher traction performance (Molari et al, 2015), but with higher cost compared to the tire. One way to minimize the cost and maintain the highest operational performance is the use of track only on the part that promotes traction, as we can observe in the new concepts of combines and tractors that have been released in Brazil. The slippage index, which is closely related to the wheels, is among the various parameters that can be analyzed in the performance of the agricultural tractor. About 20 to 55% of the available power of a tractor can be lost in the process of interaction between the wheels and the soil surface, as demonstrated by Burt et al (1983)
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