DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF ROTARY TILLER FOR LOCALLY MADE WALKING TRACTOR

摘要

The development of a rotary tiller for locally made walking tractors was carried out in three stages. The first prototype was developed and tested in a soil bin to optimize the working parameters. From the experimental results, the optimum parameters were found to be rotary speed of 165-220 rpm, forward speed of 0.35 m/s and the power requirement for cutting and throwing of soil mass was 2.58-4.48 kW. The rotary tiller was later attached to a locally made walking tractor. The locally made walking tractor does not have a pto shaft for driving the rotary unit. The belt pulley drive system was designed to transmit power from the engine to the rotary tiller. The tests were conducted in a laboratory to measure the rotary shaft power and engine power. From the experimental results it was observed that that the rotary shaft power showed the same pattern as that of engine at revolutions of 2000 rpm to 2300 rpm. The maximum value of the rotary shaft power was 4.24 kW. Finally, the rotary tiller was tested in the field to evaluate the field capacity and field efficiency. The field tests for tilling at a width of 0.48 m, tilling depth of 8.3 cm and at a forward speed of 0.46 m/s gave an average field capacity of 0.073 ha/h. The theoretical field capacity was 0.082 ha/h and thus the field efficiency was 89%.