Thesis supervisor: Kornél Tamás
Location of studies (in Hungarian): BME Department of Machine and Product Design Abbreviation of location of studies: GT3
Description of the research topic:
a.) Antecedents: Antecedents: There were previous research studies in the Department of Machine and Product Design, where the Discrete Element Method (DEM) was utilized for modeling agricultural processes and materials. The utilization of a DEM model has the feasibility to simulating the agricultural materials’ failures (cracks, fractures etc.) and resulted discontinuities which effected by certain working process. One of this “living” agricultural material with organic contain is the arable soil of fields. However, simulating and investigating new designs of agricultural instruments and tillage tools are important too. In such DEM model the effects of soil during the working process can be modelled on the surface of detailed geometry of tillage tool, thus the wear on tool’s geometry could be evaluated beside the resulted quality of soil.
Nowadays, sweep tools play the key role in agricultural applications where conservation tillage used, which means the soil moisture content preservation. Moreover, the sweep tools are used for cultivation process by loosening the soil in order to make air and water penetrate into soil easily as well as other benefits. Soil consists of many particles with various sizes and shapes which has different physical and mechanical properties which is represented with various parameters. Therefore, developing an accurate parameter set of DEM model of arable soil is necessary along with physical laws applied on the model of soil particles.
b.) Aim of research: Aim of this research is to model DEM based soil-tool interaction in field conditions as realistic as possible and balance with computational time and cost. To analyze the feasibility of weed and residue control these models should be integrated in the improved soil’s DEM model.
c.) Tasks, main items, necessary time:
• Review of the literature in the field of discrete element method along with related studies in the field of geophysics, biosystems engineering and computer science. Literature review on discrete element method would be base of the thesis and other topics would be used to implementing different aspects to the PhD thesis e.g. thixotropic soil (approximately 9 months).
• Field experiments would be conducted in fields which consist of different types of soil. Results of these experiments would be used for soil model development (approximately 12 months).
• Analyzing the experimental results and development of DEM model of soil-tool interaction depending of these results. Calibration and validation of parameters in simulations (approximately 15 months).
• Preparation and attendance for scientific conferences, publication and writing dissertation (approximately 12 months).
d.) Required equipment: For field tests, required equipment is arable soil and sweep tools which is attached to agricultural machine e.g. tractor. For data processing in experiments speed and force sensors are required and must be installed to tractor. For DEM model development, software (YADE, Solidworks and MATLAB) are required. Hardware is required in order to run simulations. Additionally, laboratory tests need for soil analysis.
e.) Expected scientific results: Deep understanding of soil-tool interactions, accurate soil model which is applicable for weeds and residue simulations during tillage applications, tool geometry improvement, implementation of harmonic motion engine for decreasing energy consumption of tillage process.
f.) References:
1. Tamás, K. (2018). The role of bond and damping in the discrete element model of soil-sweep interaction. Biosystems Engineering, 169, 57-70.
2. Tamás, K., Jóri, I. J., & Mouazen, A. M. (2013). Modelling soil–sweep interaction with discrete element method. Soil and Tillage Research, 134, 223-231
3. Tamás, K., Kovács, Á., & Jóri, I. J. (2016). The Evaluation of the Parallel Bond's Properties in DEM Modeling of Soils. Periodica Polytechnica. Engineering. Mechanical Engineering, 60(1), 21.
Required language skills: english Number of students who can be accepted: 1
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