A Research on Utilizing of Discrete Element Method in the Design of Agricultural Machineries

The energy required for tillage processes accounts for a significant proportion of total energy usage in crop production. Development of more efficient tillage tools is essential to reduce the energy consumption and to increase agricultural production. Although there are some methods which are currently being used to analyze and design agricultural machineries (i.e. empirical, analytical and continuum numerical (Finite element method) methods), each of which has its own shortcomings. In this study, as a novel approach discrete element method was explained and then the possibility of using discrete element method to design agricultural machineries was investigated. For this purpose, draught forces and soil profile measured by Saunders (2002) for soil-mouldboard plough interaction was simulated. Simulation results showed that draught forces can be predicted with a maximum relative error of 20.5%, while soil profile was simulated with 9.3 % relative error. Results of the study proved that the discrete element method can effectively be used to design agricultural machineries.