ASSEMBLY AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF THE INSTRUMENTATION SYSTEM ON A SOIL BIN

Abstract

An instrumentation system was assembled to measure and record draught in soil-tool interaction in tillage study. The instrumentation system consisted of a load cell, strain gauge amplifier, data logger and a computer system (laptop). The instrumentation system was calibrated using dead weight method. The soil bin facility consisted of the soil bin, soil levelling blade, smooth compaction roller, spiked roller, implement carriage system, sub implement carriage system, tool bar and fixing device, drive system(45 kW - 4 wheel drive tractor) and the instrumentation system. Two experiments were conducted on the outdoor soil bin to determine the effects of speed and compaction on draught and soil disturbance parameters. The soil in the bin was sandy clay loam. In the first experiment, speeds of tillage were 10, 15, and 20 km/h at constant degree of compaction of 3 passes of compaction roller. In the second experiment, 5, 10, 15 and 20 passes of compaction roller of respective mean values of compaction as 1550, 2829, 3126 and 3775 kN/m2 at constant tillage speed of 8 km/h. The tillage depth was 120 mm and tool was a mouldboard plough for both experiments. Bulk density measurements were determined using core sampler and oven drying method. A moisture meter and gravimetric method were both used for estimation of moisture content. A soil penetrometer was used for the measurement of compaction. The result of the soil bin experiments showed that the value of draught increased with increase in speed and later decreased with further increase in speed. A polynomial relationship was observed between the speed and the soil disturbance parameters, except with the height of ridge and small soil throw in which inverse relationship was observed. It was also found that the value of draught increased with increase in the values of compaction and bulk density, whereas the values of the soil disturbance parameters decreased with increase in compaction. The mean values of draught, moisture content and bulk density for the constant speed experiment varied respectively from 549.28 to 2477.17 N; 4.5 to 8.7 %; and 1.18 to 1.52 g/cm3; while the draught, moisture content and bulk density for the variable speed experiment varied from 3775.67 to 4033.16 N; 4.0 to 5.8 % and 1.07 to 1.13 g/cm3 respectively