2009 Reno, Nevada, June 21 - June 24, 2009, 2009
ABSTRACT The use of irrigation is critical to quality crop production and continuous-move irrigat... more ABSTRACT The use of irrigation is critical to quality crop production and continuous-move irrigation systems are suited to the requirements of sandy soils, however their mobility could be affected by trafficability problems depending upon soil moisture. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mobility of travelling irrigators by analysing the rolling resistance and rut depth of pneumatic tyres in a sandy soil at different moisture contents when operating at a range of inflation pressures and vertical loads. A 1/9 scaled tyre was attached to a frame and installed in a soil bin where the soil could be air dry, saturated and field capacity and the rolling resistance and rut depth were recorded and compared to predicted values estimated from plate sinkage tests using Bekker (1960) equations. Rolling resistance and rut depth were influenced by both the load and soil moisture, while inflation pressure only affected the rolling resistance. The coefficient of rolling resistance ranged from 0.15 to 0.41 depending on the soil strength and inflation pressure. Ideally the loads should be kept to a minimum and operated at lowest safe inflation pressures for the range of soil conditions. In the pure sand used for the study, mobility was greater at field capacity than either air field or saturated conditions. However, further full scale work should be undertaken in the field soils with a greater number of incremental soil moisture contents.
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