Design and Experiment of a Biomimetic Deep Loosening Shovel with Reduced Drag and Ripple Shape for Protective Tillage Mechanism

Abstract In order to effectively reduce the resistance of the deep loosening shovel blade when cutting soil and reduce the overall energy consumption, the good loosening performance of the earthworm corrugated body structure was applied to the design of deep loosening shovel drag reduction, and a corrugated biomimetic deep loosening shovel was designed. This study analyzes the force on the shovel blade and establishes a mechanical model based on the working conditions and characteristics of deep loosening operations. Using the dynamic analysis software ANSYS/LS-DYNA, analyze the changes in tillage resistance of the original and biomimetic deep loosening shovels during soil cutting when the deep loosening depth is 250 mm and the forward speed is 1.25 m/s. In order to compare tillage resistance, indoor soil tank comparison tests were conducted on the original deep loosening shovel and the biomimetic deep loosening shovel. Through the analysis of experimental data, it was found that the resistance of deep loosening increases with the increase of the forward speed of the deep loosening shovel; The resistance of the deep loosening shovel with a biomimetic structure is smaller than that of the original deep loosening shovel. At the same level of experimental factors, it was found that the corrugated biomimetic deep loosening shovel effectively reduced drag by 12.77%, proving that the corrugated biomimetic deep loosening shovel has good drag reduction characteristics and is conducive to energy conservation and consumption reduction of the entire machine.