Integration of Reliability Concept into Soil Tillage Machine Design

Abstract

The main interest of designers is not only to determine the amplitudes of tillage forces but also the type of their distributions under different soil mechanical properties with object of achieving reliable designs. Whereas, the deterministic design approach consists in achieving designs without considering the randomness of the design parameters that may lead to non reliable designs. In this work, we establish a statistical study on the randomness of the soil properties in collaboration with Cranfield University. This new study can be considered as a useful database for agricultural equipment design fields. Here, we take into account the uncertainties of soil mechanical properties that have big effects on tillage forces. The tillage forces are calculated in accordance with analytical model of McKyes and Ali with some modifications to include the effect of both soil-metal adhesion and tool speed. The distributions of soil-tool forces are next established to design soil tillage equipments such as shank chisel plow. The reliability index is then calculated using two deferent methods (Monte Carlo method and Hasofer and Lind approach). The Hasofer and Lind approach provides the structural reliability level with a low computing time relative to the Monte Carlo approach