The efficiency of a rotary cultivator

✍ Scribed by J.M. Beeny; D.J. Greig

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1965
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 657 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8634
• DOI: 10.1016/0021-8634(65)90102-2

✦ Synopsis

The performance of a fully instrumented rotary cultivator operating under field conditions in a sandy clay loam is described. The aim of the work was to check the overall efficiency of power transmission from the tractor to the cultivator and to investigate the effect of rotor speed, depth of working and forward speed on power requirement.

A set of values was obtained for the efficiency of the mechanical drive to the rotor. The theory' that high rotor speeds are responsible for the high specific work requirements of rotary cultivators, compared with rotary diggers, was also examined. The experimental results apply only to conditions at the time of the experiment, no attempt being made to relate them to fundamental soil properties. They suggest that the lowest values of specific work requirement are obtained within a small range of volumes of soil worked per rotor blade cut and that these volumes are dependent only on the combination of depth and bite length of the blade over the range of values measured.