Analysis of cultivator working bodies technological properties of pre-sowing soil surface treatment and cultivator sweep improvement

Abstract

One of the directions of agricultural production intensification is to increase the level of production processes mechanization in agriculture through the use of more advanced technical means. This fully applies to pre-sowing surface cultivation of the soil, aimed at preserving moisture in the soil and creating conditions for uniform seeding of seeds to a given depth. As a result of the analysis it is found that at the initial stage of cultivator sweep movement in the soil the undercut layer is compacted with the next shift and crumbling in a plane located at an angle to the horizon. Subsequent movement of the layer on a flat shelf of the working body occurs without loosing until it falls from its edge during which the upper dry with the lower moist soil layer is mixed. Besides after the undercut layer has descended from the wings of the cultivator sweep and the impact of its soil aggregates on the soil sole a crushed and dusty fraction is formed which does not seem agrotechnically valuable for the soil and it worsens its structural composition. Analytical studies have also shown that it is possible to increase the degree of crumbling the soil by the cultivator and reduce the formation of the overground fraction if in the cultivator sweep the shelves are convex in the upper direction, while the curvature of the bulge should change with distance from the cutting edge and the edge of the shelf. It is found that the cutting edge and the edge of the sweep should be located in one horizontal plane. The cultivator sweep made in this form creates the conditions for the subsequent crumbling of the soil layer cut by it during its movement along the wings of the sweep and its gradual descent from them without falling, which prevents the reciprocal movement of cultivated soil layers from being transported to the wet layer surface and the formation of overground dust fraction, which worsens the structural soil composition.