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    Available at www.sciencedirect.com

    jo ur na l home pa ge : ww w. el sevi er. com /l oc at e/ is sn /1 53 75 11 0

    Research Paper: PMPower and Machinery

    Three-point hitch-mechanism instrumentation for tillage

    power optimization

    H. Bentahera,, E. Hamzab, G. Kantchevc, A. Maalejc, W. Arnoldd

    aOlive-tree Institute, P.O. Box 1087, Sfax-3000, TunisiabNational Agronomic Institute of Tunis, Tunisiac

    National Engineering School of Sfax, PBW, Sfax-3000, TunisiadFraunhofer-Institute for Non-Destructive Testing (IZFP), Campus E3.1, University, D-66123 Saarbrucken, Germany

    a r t i c l e i n f o

    Article history:

    Received 29 December 2006

    Received in revised form

    28 November 2007

    Accepted 29 January 2008

    Available online 17 March 2008

    In order to study tillage power optimization, a tillage-force measuring system has been

    built with transducers in the three-point hitch mechanism, and then has been calibrated

    and tested in the field. The uniqueness of this system is its ability to measure the three

    orthogonal components of the tillage force despite using only three force sensors; this was

    possible by using a three-dimensional analysis of the tractor linkage mechanism.

    A dynamic calculus program was developed to take into consideration the changes of

    the three-point hitch-mechanism geometry during the tillage operation. The calibration

    results showed a linear relation between the applied and the measured forces. The

    preliminary field tests proved the stability of the system results. The developed system can

    readily be applied in studies to minimize tillage energy consumption.&2008 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    1. Introduction

    Due to the rapid increase of energy cost, power optimization

    is a common objective for many engineering devices. Tillage

    is the biggest power consumer in an agricultural production

    system, and hence the evaluation of tillage effort is a field of

    great interest.

    Researchers have proposed and built many systems to

    measure the force and power requirements of tillage imple-ments. These systems can be classified into three types based

    on the location of the force transducers. For the first type,

    sensors are mounted on the tillage tool (Girma, 1989;Formato

    et al., 2005). These systems give a precise idea about strain

    distribution on the implement that helps in their design

    optimization. However, they are expensive because each

    tested tool has to be equipped with sensors. Moreover, the

    transducers installation required some changes to imple-

    ment global geometry which could modify the soiltool

    interaction and the tool weight. The second category of

    systems has separate frames in which transducers are

    mounted. These frames are introduced between the tractor

    and the implement. Because these systems are interchange-

    able between different tractors and tools and are easy to

    manufacture, the majority of researchers have investigated

    such devices (Reece, 1961;Barker et al., 1981;Reid et al., 1985;

    Clark and Adsit, 1985;ODogherty, 1986;Chaplin et al., 1987;

    Thomson and Shinners, 1989; Palmer, 1992; Godwin et al.,1993; Hammada, 1998; Al-Jalil et al., 2001; Kasisira and du

    Plessis, 2006). However, this approach presents many incon-

    veniences: first, it requires a heavy frame to fix the

    transducers which causes a change of the total weight and

    requires a backward displacement of the implement. Second,

    fixing the transducers and the frame to the tractor necessi-

    tates many extra elements at the articulations that are a

    source of error in the measurements. For these reasons, the

    second type of system does not reflect real work conditions.

    ARTICLE IN PRESS

    1537-5110/$ - see front matter & 2008 IAgrE. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2008.01.008

    Corresponding author. Tel.: +216 74 241589; fax: +21674 241033.E-mail address:[email protected] (H. Bentaher).

    B I O S Y S T E M S E N G I N E E R I N G 1 0 0 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 2 4 3 0

    http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_9/dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2008.01.008mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_9/dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2008.01.008
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    The third type consists of installation of transducers in the

    three-point hitch system of the tractor. Despite the fact that

    this category preserves the real conditions of field work (e.g.

    tool-tractor position), little research has been focused on it.

    The efficiency of these systems is highly related to the

    position of the sensors. On the one hand, some researchers

    mounted the transducers on the top and the two lower links

    (Bandy et al., 1985; Upadhyaya et al., 1985; Al-Janobi, 2000;

    Bentaher et al., 2003). The load of the lower links is complex.

    It entails tension, compression and flexure which prevent the

    installation of force sensors. As a result, with such systems it

    is not possible to measure the lateral effort generated by

    asymmetrical implements. On the other hand, the installa-

    tion of force transducers on the top and the two lift links

    seems to be the best solution. To the best of our knowledge,

    the only work that has been done on this type of system is by

    McLaughlin et al. (1993). In that work, the three-point hitch

    system was instrumented by five force sensors. A transfor-

    mation matrix was derived to transform the force of these

    transducers into orthogonal components of the tillage force.

    Since the establishment of this matrix was based on a two-

    dimensional kinematic study (Bandy et al., 1985), the in-

    formation concerning the lateral tillage force was lost.

    In the present work, a three-dimensional kinematic study was

    developed to establish the transformation matrix. We instru-

    mented a tractor with three force sensors (on the top and the two

    lift links) and an angular transducer for the hitch rock shaft

    (Fig. 1). A dynamic program, taking into consideration the

    changes of the three-point hitch-system geometry, was estab-

    lished to calculate the tillage effort. The developed system is able

    to measure the three orthogonal components of the tillage force.

    2. Materials and methods

    2.1. Theoretical considerations

    In the majority of the published work, researchers considered

    the three-point hitch mechanism as a planar system. This

    system was modelled in two dimensions to represent the forces

    in the original geometrical configuration between the tractor

    and the implement (Bandy et al, 1985; Al-Janobi, 2000). This two-

    dimensional approximation, which causes the loss of the lateral

    force, can be accepted for the studies of symmetric implements.

    In order to evaluate the longitudinal, vertical and lateral

    forces of a non-symmetric tillage tool, a three-dimensional

    study of the tractor linkage mechanism is needed. The

    mechanism consists of seven articulated beams. During field

    work, this system is isostatic with one degree of freedom. The

    angular position of the rockshaft is sufficient to determine the

    exact geometry of this system.

    To make the force calculation simpler, the three-point hitch

    system is modelled by ties and pin joints. The coordinates of

    each joint are calculated in a Cartesian coordinate system (X0,

    Y0,Z0) with I0, the centre of the rear wheel, as the point of origin(Fig. 2). The calculus equations of all the pin-joint positions are

    developed. The position of the tillage application point G in

    reference to this coordinate system is given by the equations:

    xG xDIHzKzD

    IK HG

    xDxKIK

    (1)

    zG zD HGzKzD

    IK IH

    xDxKIK

    (2)

    For a definition of the variables in these equations, see

    Fig. 2. An Excel calculus program (CP1) was developed to

    determine these coordinates. The inputs of this program are:

    tractor characteristics: Cartesian coordinates of O, O0

    , B, B0

    ,E, and the distances: AA0, L1, L01and L3;

    ARTICLE IN PRESS

    Fig. 1 Instrumented three-point hitch mechanism.

    Nomenclature

    AtoKandO positions of pin joints of the three-point hitch-

    mechanism as defined inFig. 2

    Cg gravity centre of the tillage tool chassis

    G tillage application point

    g gravitational accelerationl0 centre of the rear wheel

    L1 length of the lower link

    L01 distance between the joint of the lower link (tractor

    side) and the pivot connection of the lift rod

    L2 length of the lift rod

    L3 length of the lift arm

    L4 length of the upper link

    m tillage tool masslRij reaction force in the point i at the direction j for

    the left side of the hitch mechanismrRij reaction force in the point i at the direction j for

    the right side of the hitch mechanismWx, Wy, Wz orthogonal components of the tillage force at

    the pointG

    Xi, Yiand Zi Cartesian coordinates of the point i

    XG, YG, ZG Cartesian coordinates of the pointG

    f rock shaft angular position

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    adjustable lengths: L2and L4; tool triangular chassis characteristics: distances DD0, IK, IH

    and HG;

    rock shaft angular position f which is the variableparameter during the field work.

    The tractor characteristics are measured and compared to

    the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

    (OECD) restricted code test report (CEMAGREF, 1995). The

    equilibrium of the left lower link arm gives the following

    system of equations:

    lRDxl RBx

    l RCx 0

    lRDyl RBy

    l RCy 0

    lRDzl RBz

    lRCz 0

    lRCzyC yB lRCyzCzB l RDzyD yB lRDyzD zB 0

    lRCxzC zB l RCzxCxB

    l RDxzD zB l RDzxDxB 0

    lRCyxCxB l RCxyC yB

    l RDyxDxB l RDxyD yB 0

    lRCxxA xC

    lRCy

    yAyC

    lRCzzAzC

    lRCL2

    (3)

    Here,Rijis the reaction force at the point i at the direction j,

    xi,yiandzi, are the Cartesian coordinates of the point i andl

    indicates the left side of the three-point hitch mechanism. The

    equilibrium of the right lower link arm gave a similar system of

    equations (r for the right side). From the equilibrium of the

    tillage tool chassis (Fig. 3), this system of equations is derived:Wx l RDx r RDxRK

    xKxEL4

    Wy l RDy r RDy

    Wz l RDz r RDz RKzKzE

    L4mg

    yDrRDz l RDz WyzGzD mgyCg

    zKzDxKxE xKxDzKzE RKL4

    WxzGzD WzxG xD mgxCg xI

    Wy r RDx

    lRDxxGxD

    yD

    8>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>:

    (4)

    Here, Wx, Wy and Wz are the orthogonal components of the

    tillage force at the pointG,mis the tillage tool mass andgis the

    gravitational acceleration. The last two of these equations arederived knowing the direction of the reactions in the two lift

    ARTICLE IN PRESS

    A1

    O1

    K

    Z0 A2

    O2E

    B2B1

    I0

    D1 Wy

    Wz

    D2

    Y0 I0

    Z0

    O

    3A

    EX0

    B

    1

    C

    2Z

    K

    45

    H

    X

    Wz W

    WxGD

    Y0

    I0 X0

    EA2

    B2C2 D2

    Y

    IKA1

    B1

    O1

    C1 D1

    X Wy

    Wx

    W

    G

    Line of attack

    Fig. 2 Rear view (a), side view (b) and upper view (c) of the three-point hitch mechanism showing lower link 1 and its length

    L1 BD; L01:the distance BC; lift rod 2 and its length L2 AC; lift arm 3 and its length L3 OA; upper link 4 and its length

    L4 EK; tool triangle chassis 5; longitudinal component of tillage force Wx; lateral component of tillage force Wy; vertical

    component of tillage force Wz.

    Z0

    I0

    X0

    B CRD D

    mg

    CgI

    2

    I

    E

    O

    A 4

    3

    1

    Rk K

    5

    W

    Fig. 3 Force diagram of the three-point hitch mechanism,

    Cgand mg are, respectively, the gravity centre and the

    weight of the tool chassis,Wis the tillage force and Riis the

    reaction force in the pointi.

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    links and the top link: they are bi-articulated beams, and so

    their reactions are parallel to the beam directions.

    The solutions of these equations give the three orthogonal

    components of the tillage force:

    xi, yi and zi, are the Cartesian coordinates of the point i.

    These equations show that the voltage responses of three

    force transducers located in the two lift rods and the upperlink are sufficient to identify the tillage force. A second Excel

    calculus sheet (CP2) was developed to evaluate the three

    orthogonal components of the tillage effort. The inputs of this

    program are the outputs of the first program (CP1) and the

    responses of these transducers. The flow chart of the two

    calculus programs is shown inFig. 4.

    2.2. Instrumentation

    The three-point hitch mechanism of a Massey Ferguson 6120

    tractor was instrumented to evaluate the orthogonal compo-

    nents of tillage implements without changing the dimensions

    of the mechanism. Two HBM-U2B force transducers with a

    range of 200 kN were incorporated into the two lift links. Four

    simple thread shells were designed and manufactured to

    make the assemblage of these transducers possible. A third

    load cell with the same capacity and a lower weight was

    designed and constructed for the top link (Fig. 1). The

    incorporation of this transducer does not change the weight

    of the top link much (less than 5%). More detailed information

    concerning the design of this sensor and its calibration has

    been presented by Bentaher et al. (2006). A rotary position

    transducer functioning as a potential divider was mounted on

    the rockshaft to monitor its movement. This transducer was

    used to measure the angular position of the hitch mechanism

    and to calculate the implement depth.

    2.3. Data-acquisition system

    The three load cells and the rotary position transducer wereconnected to four differential channels of the 21X Campbell

    scientific data logger. This data logger was connected to the

    RS232 port of a notebook via an optically isolated interface

    SC32A. The whole acquisition system was mounted on a

    platform behind the drivers seat. This system worked either

    on its own batteries or on the 12 V power supply of the tractor.

    The data logger was used to excite the transducers and to

    sample and record their responses. The notebook was used

    to control the in-field sampling, to collect the stored data and

    to calculate the tillage effort using the developed calculus

    programs CP1 and CP2. The software (PC208) was used to

    prepare the data logger program and to run and test its

    validity and the proper functioning of the acquisition system.The sampling frequency used for the preliminary tests was

    1 Hz and the excitation voltage for the transducers was

    500mV.

    2.4. Calibration

    The instrumented three-point hitch-mechanism was cali-

    brated using a separate HBM-U9B force transducer with a

    ARTICLE IN PRESS

    Chassis dist.: D1D2,

    IK, IH and HG

    Input :

    Coord. of O1,

    O2, B1, B2, E

    Distance: A1A2,

    L1, L1, L3

    Adj. length:

    L2 and L4

    Cartesian

    Coord. of:

    A1, A2,

    C1, C2,

    D1, D2,k,

    and G

    CP1

    Angular position

    (t)

    CP2

    Transducer

    voltages

    V1, V2and V3

    Chassis Charact. : m

    and XCg, YCg, ZCg

    Tillage

    components

    Wx, Wyand Wz

    Fig. 4 Flow diagram of the calculus programs; AA 0 is the distance between the two liftarm joints; L1 is the distance between

    the joints of the lower link; L0

    1 is the distance from the lower link joint to the lift rod joint; L2 is the lift rod length; and L3 isthe lift arm length.

    Wx xKxExD xBzKzD xG xKxDxBzKzE xK xExGxDzDzB

    xDxBzG zD xG xDzDzB

    RKL4

    xCxBzAzC xAxCzCzB

    xD xBzGzD xGxDzDzB

    xD xG

    L2lRC

    r RCh i

    xD xBxGxCg

    xD xBzG zD xGxDzDzBmg (5)

    Wy xCxBzAzC xA xCzCzB

    xDxBzGzD xGxDzDzB

    yDL2

    lRCr RC

    h i

    xBxDyCgxD xBzGzD xGxDzDzB

    mg (6)

    Wz xKxEzK zGzDzB xD xKzK zEzDzB xDxBzKzEzGzD

    xDxBzGzD xGxDzDzB

    RKL4

    xCxBzAzC xAxCzC zB

    xDxBzGzD xGxDzD zB

    zD zG

    L2lRC

    r RCh i

    xDxBzGzD xCgxDzDzB

    xD xBzGzD xGxDzD zB

    mg (7)

    B I O S Y S T E M S E N G I N E E R I N G 1 0 0 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 2 4 3 0 27

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    capacity of 20 kN. The simulated effort was applied and varied

    with a chain-hoist attached to a fixed point from one side,

    and to the force transducer from the other side. This

    transducer was fixed to the force application point (G) of the

    triangular chassis with a cable. The tractor was placed on a

    horizontal plane verified by an engineers spirit level. The

    applied forces, given by the sheared cable, were located in the

    horizontal and vertical planes; their modules were controlled

    by an HBM-MVD 2510 control-panel measuring-amplifier.

    Three principal forces, related to the orthogonal directions,

    were applied: longitudinal (Wx), lateral (Wy) and vertical (Wz)

    effort. The applied forces were increased stepwise and at

    each value, the signals of the three sensors were logged for a

    period of 1 min. The results of the calibration are presented in

    Figs. 57.

    3. Results and discussions

    The calibration was done in the three directions in order to

    prove that the developed instrumentation was able to detect

    the three orthogonal components of the tillage force. The

    results (Figs. 57) showed thatWxand Wzwere proportional to

    the reaction force of the two lift links and the top link.

    However, the lateral force Wy was proportional to the

    difference between the reactions of the two lift links and

    was independent of the top lift reaction.The calibration results showed a linear relation between

    the applied force and the responses of the three force sensors.

    The output of the calculus program CP2 (Wy) and its standard

    deviation are displayed versus the applied force in Fig. 8and

    similar curves are obtained for Wx and Wz. The measured

    data fall very close to a straight line with a unit slope. The

    least square fit with an R2 of 0.995 indicates that the force was

    underestimated by approximately 0.5%.

    The longitudinal measured force showed an error of 13%

    for the lowest force (900N). This can be explained by the

    sensitivity of the developed system. In fact, the use of trans-

    ducers with a high capacity (200kN) represents a limitation in

    the measurement of small forces (McLaughlin et al., 1993).

    However, for higher forces, the maximal error was 0.82%. For

    the lateral force, the highest error between the applied and

    the measured forces was 7.6%. The error of the vertical force

    was less than 2.8%.

    In the design of this system we preserved the geometry of

    the hitch mechanism and the position of the tillage tool to the

    tractor because it will be used for two purposes. The first one

    is to study the stability of the tractor and its characteristic

    curves (power supply/fuel consumption) for different speeds.

    ARTICLE IN PRESS

    -0.02

    -0.01

    0

    0.01

    0.02

    0.03

    0.04

    0.05

    0.06

    0

    Sensorresponse,mV

    Time, s

    Left Link

    Right Link

    Top Link

    50 100 150 200 250

    Fig. 5 Sensors response to longitudinal applied force (Wx).

    -0.1

    -0.05

    0

    0.05

    0.1

    0.15

    0

    Sensorr

    esponse,mV

    Time, s

    Left Link

    Right Link

    Top Link

    100 200 300 400 500

    Fig. 6 Sensors response to lateral applied force (Wy)

    -0.02

    -0.01

    0

    0.01

    0.02

    0.03

    0.04

    0

    Sensorresponse,mV

    Time, s

    Left LinkRight Link

    Top Link

    100 200 300 400

    Fig. 7 Sensors response to vertical applied force (Wz)

    0

    1000

    2000

    3000

    4000

    5000

    6000

    0

    Measuredforce,N

    Applied force, N

    1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

    Slope = 0.968

    R2= 0.995

    Fig. 8 Lateral measured force (Wy) versus applied force(solid curve is 1:1 line).

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    In fact, the change of the tool position gives unreal results

    concerning the tractor reactions which are not directly

    transposable. The second purpose is to measure the power

    demand of different tillage tools in relation to the type of soil,

    its mechanical characteristics and the work parameters

    (depth and speed). These kinds of results are very useful for

    the evaluation of different tillage tools, the decision in the

    choice of the tool (e.g. according to the tractor power,

    availability on the farm, to calculate the number of plough

    shares) as well as the design of new tools adapted to the type

    of soil.

    The developed system gives us reliable results directly

    exploitable for research and for manufacturers in order to

    optimize power consumption.

    The field tests were conducted at the Tunisian agriculture

    institute farm (361480N, 101100E), where the soil was silty

    consisting of 63.69% silt, 36.16% sand and 0.15% clay. The

    mean water content (dry basis) and the cone index for the

    upper horizon (020 cm) were 14% and 2.2 MPa, respectively.

    A 50.8cm (2000) locally manufactured mouldboard with one

    ploughshare was used for the tests. The tractor speed used for

    these tests was 1kmh1 with a slip less than 2%. A tillage

    depth of 20cm was chosen. The registered data are repre-

    sented inFig. 9. This figure shows good stability of the three

    orthogonal components of the tillage force. The means of the

    horizontal, lateral and vertical forces generated by the tested

    mouldboard are, respectively, 4105 N,40N and 295N. The

    negative values indicate that the forces are in the opposite

    direction to the Cartesian coordinate system. The obtained

    data are in agreement with those given by several researchers

    working on a similar type of soil (McLaughlin et al., 1993;Al-Janobi, 2000;Al-Jalil et al., 2001).

    4. Conclusion

    Instrumentation of the three-point hitch mechanism allowed

    the force generated by tillage implements to be measured

    using just three force transducers. The system was calibrated

    and tested in the field and the results showed its capability to

    measure the three orthogonal components of the tillage force.

    The three-dimensional study of the hitch mechanism of the

    tractor demonstrates that the technique allows the difference

    in the reaction of the two lift arms to be measured whenusing non-symmetric tools like mouldboards. Their differ-

    ence is proportional to the lateral component of the tillage

    force. The developed calculus programs gave this system

    flexibility in the interpretation of the logged data in relation to

    the tool penetration in the soil.

    The three components of the tillage force have been measured

    using a system that allows the natural positions of tool and

    tractor to be retained. This will allow the energy consumption of

    different tillage tools to be measured during natural operation, so

    that steps can be taken to optimize their design. More investiga-

    tions would be needed to study the influence of work parameters

    such as tillage speed, tillage depth and soil type on the measured

    forces to achieve this optimization.

    Acknowledgements

    The authors would like to thank the Agence Universitaire de

    la Francophonie for the financial support of the researchersmobility between the laboratories: IZFP in the Saarland

    University LASEM in the Engineering school of Sfax and

    LAPOAF in Olive-tree institute of Tunisia.

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    0

    1000

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    3000

    4000

    5000

    0 5 10

    Time, s

    Wx

    Wy

    WzForce,N

    15 20 25

    Fig. 9 Measured data of the forces Wx,Wy, and Wzacting on the ploughshare of a 50.8cm (2000) mouldboard.

    B I O S Y S T E M S E N G I N E E R I N G 1 0 0 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 2 4 3 0 29

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