The effects of vibrating wings subsoiler plow on driver’s seat of agricultural tractors and mechanization performance
Introduction
In the last years, the Iraqi agricultural sector has become ever more pressurized due to lower increasing farm operating costs and a gap in yield production. Climate change concerns have also begun to change conventional agricultural operations. The introduction of new farming, in the form of reducing tillage and no-till planting, resulted in a cut in farm operating costs and a reduction in negative soil impacts that include soil compaction and erosion (Central Statistical Organization CSO, 2019). Soil compaction and hardpan the most reason for reducing the water permeability of the soil and prevent drainage. moreover, it affects the root zone in addition to impeding its expansion (Odey and Manuwa, 2018; Omori et al., 2020).
Conservation farming techniques have not seen much use in Iraq. Therefore, the traditional soil tillage and hardpan shattering are still major contributors to farm operating costs. Agricultural operations are still practiced in large parts of Iraq, especially in Mosul farms, where subsoiling is done every season to deep-loosen the soil (Abdullah and Hilal, 2017).
The vibratory subsoiler is considered one of the modern equipment used in the field of Iraqi agricultural mechanization, which was present within the experimental research sectors only and its use did not spread except in recent periods (AL-Mafraji and Abdullah, 2011). In Iraq, peasants believe that this machine needs a lot of energy and its use is uneconomical, but through modern applied research in many countries, vibratory subsoiler has been proven successful to use it positively on many types of soils.
It has been proven by various researchers that vibratory tines and wings for subsoiler plow are an effective method of reducing the draft force with an increase in the amount of soil disturbed. As reported by Odey Simon et al. (2018) estimated the traction resistance of vibratory subsoiler and non-vibratory working at depth of 0.35 m to be the vibratory subsoiler was 6.9 % - 17 % less than non-vibratory.
Oscillating subsoiler has several advantages over the non-oscillating one. Oscillating subsoiler requires less tractor traction resistance as compared to non-oscillating ones. Various studies have reported that 16–28 % tractor traction resistance is observed while using oscillatory tillage equipment (Xirui et al., 2016).
The effectiveness of a vibratory subsoiler is highly dependent on operating parameters such as the oscillating frequency, penetrated angle, and forward speed. Soil parameters such as moisture content and soil type also play a significant role. Thus, the optimum operating parameters may differ for different soil types and soil conditions making optimization difficult (Rao and Chaudhary, 2018).
The vibration of the driver’s seat of agricultural tractors has direct an effect on the driver by degraded health and motion sickness, impaired activities, and reduced comfort (Shahgholi et al., 2019; Gao et al., 2019). The direction of the vibrations and frequency are very significant when assessing the effects on the operator. Medical studies have clearly demonstrated that daily exposure to vibration is considered to be the major stressors contributing to the development of musculoskeletal complaints among professional drivers (Singh et al., 2020). The low-frequency vibration below 10 Hz results in various combinations of bending deformations of the spine, vertical motion of the viscera, axial and shear deformations of the buttocks tissue, pitching motion of the pelvis and pitching motion of the head (Solbiati, 2015; Gialamas et al., 2016).
Factors that significantly influence the driver’s seat of agricultural tractors are driving speed, ground unevenness, tillage tools and many other factors. Vibrations that come from the dynamic movement of a long, heavy implement such as a plow during road/track transport are transferred from the implement to the tractor chassis via the 3-point linkage (Renius, 2020).
Exploratory research on a vibratory subsoiler has revealed that little has been done on yield production in Iraq. Several published papers are available on the determination of effect subsoiler plow in the neighboring countries of Iraq. However, these studies use dissimilar protocols depending on the different circumstances.
As the literature review indicated, no paper has investigated the effect of vibration and non-vibration wings of subsoiler on driver’s seat of agricultural tractors in the soils of Iraq. Therefore, the first objective of this paper was to investigate the exposure levels to vibration and to see if these levels are within values referred to the protection of the drivers based on the European Parliament and Council Directive 2002/44/EC (Directive and Provisions, 2002). The second objective was to explore the effects of the vibration and non-vibration wings of subsoiler, penetrated angle of wings and tractor speeds on some mechanization traits which include slippage, critical depth from the surface and stability ratio of the depth. Additionally, to examine the interaction that occurs between main factors in the warm areas of Mosul province, Iraq.
Section snippets
Test site
The field experiments were conducted in a college of Agriculture and Forestry, the University of Mosul (36°23'24.1"N 43°07'55.1"E longitude, and altitude, 234 m above mean sea level), in Mosul province, northern Iraq. Minimum tillage and no-till planting were done on this field, with no deep soil tillage done since 2003. The field is located on a slope and showed some spatial variation in the soil type and conditions as depicted in Fig. 1.
Soil tests
The soil texture at the experimental site was clay. Soil
Effect of wing conditions and tractor speeds on the on VDS, Slippage, CD, and DSR
Table 3 shows the effect of two wing conditions on VDS, Slippage, CD, and DSR at three different tractor speeds of 2.88,3.6 and 4.5 km/h, respectively. The results of the present study showed there were significant differences of VDS, Slippage, CD, and DSR at the wing conditions and different combinations of speed with the exception of VDS for non-vibration wings were significant with tractor speeds that are not significant as presented in Table 3.
The VDS and Slippage at all of the treatments
Conclusion
Research in the field conditions was conducted to investigate the influence of wing conditions, tractor speed and penetrated angles on VDS, slippage, CD, and DSR. The following conclusions can be drawn from the results, it was revealed that VDS is less affected by tractor speed and penetrated angles but is much affected by vibration wings. It was observed that an increase in tractor speed results in a negative effect on VDS, slippage, CD, and DSR. The lowest values of VDS are related to the
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Mosul Universityfor support during the time of the study and the Central Statistical Organization CSO for supplying the information used in this research.
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