Stress and strain analysis of variant forces acting on animal drawn mouldboard plough using ansys

Abstract

In the field of agriculture, an advanced application of technology has taken full force as large scale of farms are nowadays manned with tractors, cultivators, harvesters, and other farm equipment. However, due to the high cost of maintenance coupled with past failures of tractor mechanization schemes, farmers need reliable and low cost agricultural tools that may be hand driven or bullock driven for small scale farming in Northern Ghana. The object of this paper is to re-design an improved animal drawn plough to complement tractor services. Autodesk Inventor and ANSYS software were used for the design and analysis of the models. Material of high quality was selected for the proposed model and appropriate engineering design principles were adopted in designing it. The selected material (Low alloy steel, AISI 4140) was used for the new model and compared with the existing cast iron designs. The analytical comparison of the two models shows that, the low alloy steel (AISI 4140) made share and mouldboard exhibits favorable results. The percentage difference in terms of total deformations were found to be 40.8% and 40.64%, and the equivalent elastic strain of about 41.24% and 41.46% respectively in favour of the low alloy steel (AISI 4140) made share and mouldboard. The implication is that, the cast iron models will deform and reach the yield point faster than the low alloy steel models. The results of this study predict that the low alloy steel (AISI 4140) could be a suitable material for making farm implements such as mouldboard ploughs because the factor of safety of the low alloy steel (AISI 4140) made share is 1.4 and mouldboard is 1.8 however, the cast iron share has a factor of safety of 0.3 and the mouldboard having 0.4. The results of the developed model could be useful for the design and subsequent fabrication of new tillage tools adaptable to different types of soil, in terms of application.