Power need of an implement for removing polymer residues from the soil surface in Kazakh horticulture

Abstract

Polymeric materials are largely used in horticulture for mulching and irrigation, but their long degradation time causes various environmental and agronomic problems, hence should be removed at the end of the crop cycle. Among different mechanized techniques for collecting polymer residues from the field, the single-phase one is the most effective, since the plastic film and irrigation tape lifting, cleaning, and collection operations are done in a single pass, though, in most cases, the implements used in Kazakhstan still need an operator to manage the winding mechanism. The authors, who developed a completely automatic plastic retriever, based on a hydraulic drive with a friction clutch for winding up the plastic materials, assessed the power need of the implement, in order to compare it with the power need of similar implements, where the winding mechanism is hand-operated and consequently power consumption is high, due to the need to stop and start the engine many times. In this study the parameters of the hydraulic drive were determined by analytical calculation, starting from pressure and speed data measured on the hydraulic line and velocity and traction resistance of the implemented measured during the field tests. The maximum power need to drive the winding mechanisms resulted 1.86 kW at a forward speed of the unit of 1.8 m⋅s-1. Secondary the operation costs were broadly assessed, finding that they were about 43% less then when using man driven equipment.