REDUCING TRACTION RESISTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL MACHINES BY MINIMALIZING ITS FLUCTUATIONS WHEN TILLING HEAVY-LOAMY SOILS

The paper presents the results of studies aimed at reducing energy costs required for the tillage of heavy soils by reducing fluctuations in traction resistance, which occur during the operation of a machine-tractor unit. The authors propose possible ways of reducing the tractor's pull arising from the action of an agricultural machine, which inevitably lead to an increase in the overall traction resistance and cause unreasonable negative effects on the energy units and their operators, thus significantly reducing the efficiency of the units. The ways of reducing load fluctuations include: the use of elastic links provided for in the tractor linkage design; the use of elastic-damping systems in the design of working elements, as well as the development of machines with rotary working elements, the technological process of which does not cause large load fluctuations. The most effective way is to use machines with rotary working elements. The authors have obtained and present mathematical expressions for finding the total resistance arising during the operation of the automatically driven sectional working element for combing weeds and loosening the soil. According to the research results, the authors present a perfect design of a sectional working element, which is capable of eradicating weed plants by combing them together with the root and simultaneous loosening of the surface layer of heavy loamy soils to a depth of 2...10 cm. It has been found that the sectional working element has a low amplitude of self-excited vibrations during operation (0.12 kN) due to the rotation of the rotors, which has a positive effect on the technological process and the working conditions of the machine operator, as well as reduces the energy consumption for crop cultivation in 1.8...2.0 times as compared with flat-cutting paws.