Fuel consumption test and analysis for a soil-gashing and root-cutting Machine

Soil-gashing and root-cutting Machine is designed for degenerated grassland (Leymus-chinenisis) in Northern China. This machine can dramatically increase the soil condition. The energy inputs happened through the consumed fuel. Fuel consumption is one of the most important factors that affect the cost of tillage. However, the fuel consumption on this operation was unknown. One method of selecting the optimal parameters for this tillage technology was presented in this paper. Fuel consumption tests were conducted to evaluate the influences of three important parameters: the penetrate depth, tractor speed, and PTO shaft speed. The penetrate depth and the tractor speed ranged from 10 cm to 20 cm and from 2.45 km/h to 6.79km/h, respectively. Two commonly used PTO shaft speed were selected. Quadratic regression general rotation design was employed. A Fuel Consumption Model (FCM) was derived and modified. FCM can be used to predict the fuel consumption. Appropriate work parameters were selected in actual condition and future design for this kind of machine. The results show that the fuel cost decreased by 26.6%and the productivity increased by 21.6% after the optimization by FCM.