Share-soil interaction load and wear at various tillage conditions of a horizontally reversible plough

The horizontally reversible plough (HRP) most widely used in soil excavating is a novel tillage tool, whose favorable characteristic is that it can continuously and alternatively implement a high-speed commuting soil cutting operation. Consequently, the HRP has more excellent performances (such as steady tilling and orderly soil cutting) than the regular mouldboard plough. However, the soil/tool interaction at high tilling speeds produces intensive dynamics flow interaction between soil and plough-surface, which in turn induces plasticity and hence severe wear rate and reduced tool life. Based on our previously related work, this emphasis was on the effects of tillage conditions on soil/share flow interaction of a HRP, as well as, the relevance of interaction load on the ploughshare to share wear rate. To achieve this, the authors used a combination of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based simulations and scanning electron microscope (SEM) based measurements for HRP tillage at various tillage conditions, including three different tool speeds (5, 6, 7 km/h) and three different operational depths (0.27, 0.315, 0.360 m). The calculated and the measured results were compared at the identified settings with good qualitative agreement. The comparison of the loads and wear rates at the different tillage conditions indicates that increasing either the tool speed or operational depth absolutely lead to the larger soil/tool interaction load at the plough-share, specifically at the share-point, and as a result the more intensive wear rate and the shorter tool life.