Estimation of fuel efficiency of wheeled and tracked tractors at sunflower cultivation

BACKGROUND: Tracked tractors have known advantages in comparison with wheeled tractors, such as better traction characteristics, higher drawbar efficiency and lower negative effect on soil. There-fore, the comparison of their operational and technological characteristics, especially during operation at sunflower cultivation, with the wheeled tractors currently used for this purpose is a relevant problem.

AIMS: To analyze the per-hectar fuel consumption at the whole range of field operations of the sun-flower cultivation for the Agromash-90TGA tracked tractor, suitable for all the field operations of the sunflower cultivation including inter-row operations, and the MTZ-1221.2 and the MTZ-82.1 wheeled tractors.

METHODS: The carried-out analysis was based on the typical sunflower cultivating farm in Saratov Region, where the MTZ-1221.2 and the MTZ-82.1 wheeled tractors are used. First of all, the attachments and operation modes of wheeled tractors at the sunflower cultivation were defined. Then, the traction analysis of the MTZ-1221.2 wheeled tractor at stubble, the MTZ-82.1 wheeled tractor at the field pre-pared for sowing and the Agromash-90TGA tracked tractor at both fields was performed. The attach-ments and operation modes for the Agromash-90TGA tractor were defined on the basis of the analysis results. Finally, performance per shift, per-hectar fuel consumption and total fuel consumption at the whole range of field operations were calculated.

RESULTS: The performed calculations revealed that the total fuel consumption of the MTZ-1221.2 and the MTZ-82.1 wheeled tractors for cultivation of 1 Ha of sunflower is 52.819 kg and the fuel con-sumption of the Agromash-90TGA is 41.375 kg.

CONCLUSIONS: Using the Agromash-90TGA tracked tractor at the sunflower cultivation in condi-tions of Saratov Region provides the fuel economy by 21.7% in comparison with using the MTZ-1221.1 and the MTZ-82.1 wheeled tractors.