DESIGN OF RIDGE PLASTERING ATTACHMENT FOR POWER TILLER

Abstract

The decreasing rural population is becoming increasingly responsible for feeding the growing urban population; increase in productivity of agriculture has become an essential feature in stepping towards sustainability. As younger generation show reluctance in opting farming as occupation agriculture faces huge shortage in labour especially in Kerala. But agricultural mechanization has a vital role to motivate the young people to enter in farming sector. Ridge forming is a vital operation involved in the rice cultivation which demands huge labour force. The traditional manual ridge making and plastering is characterized by low efficiency, low strength, high cost and directly affects the profitability of paddy cultivation. The introduction of tractor (35-45hp) operated ridge plastering machine has alleviated the drudgery involved in bund forming operation of labours and considerably reduced the cost of operation. But the combined weight of tractor and ridge plastering machine results in sinkage of the tractor in the water-logged paddy fields and the affordability of separate machine for plastering. Keeping this in view the present study includes the familiarization of engine and transmission system of power tiller and the methodology involved in the operation of different tractor operated ridge plastering machines and also designed a ridge plastering attachment for power tiller. The power tiller selected for the study is KAMCO KB 200. The different parameters of engine and transmission system of KAMCO KB 200 are studied for the design of ridge plastering attachment. Different tractor operated ridge plastering machines of Redlands, Yarrow Farms etc are analyzed. 3D model of the ridge plastering attachment along with the power tiller is developed. The critical components of the attachment like shafts, gears, sprockets, bearing splines etc. are analytically calculated. The ridge plastering attachment consists of bund plastering disc assembly, ditching unit and a modified auxiliary gear box of the KAMCO power tiller. The blades of the ditching unit on the periphery of the circular disc cut the soil and throw against the disc assembly cover; the rotating disc trims the bund and plasters it with thrown soil. The roller attached to the rotating disc compresses the soil. The unit is designed in such a way that it can form a new ridge of height 20 cm and a renovated ridge of up to 40 cm.