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Cranfield University

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Conclusions<br />

8 CONCLUSIONS<br />

� The benefit of tracks with respect to reduced soil displacement, penetrometer resis-<br />

tance, rut depth, and density increase shown by Ansorge (2005, a) is maintained for<br />

entire machine configurations after the additional passage of the rear axle in both<br />

laboratory and field studies.<br />

� Alternative wheel configurations could reach the performance of tracks if the tyre<br />

load does not exceed 5 t. It was shown that a combine harvester equipped with Ter-<br />

raTracs at a total weight of 33 t maintains soil displacement similar to that of a<br />

wheeled combine harvester of one third of the weight The track at 2.67 times the<br />

load of a tyre causes similar soil displacement.<br />

� The superiority of the tracks towards additional soil displacement caused by the<br />

rear tyres could be attributed to the dense layer created at the soil surface.<br />

� The differences between different tracks can be attributed to the number of rollers<br />

and belt tension as they can significantly affect soil displacement. However, the ef-<br />

fect of belt tension of the friction driven TerraTrac on soil physical properties<br />

proved to be small within the range of belt tensions available.<br />

� The draught force necessary to loosen soil after the passage of a wheeled machine<br />

is significantly higher than after a tracked machine and can reach a factor of 3 if the<br />

additional working depth resulting from deeper reaching higher compaction after a<br />

wheel is taken into consideration.<br />

� An in-situ method was developed to gain the slope and intercept of a virgin com-<br />

pression line basically from 2 different tyre passes in the field with known weight,<br />

inflation pressure and rut depth. Using these in-situ VCL parameters in the model<br />

COMPSOIL of O’Sullivan et al. (1998) it was possible to predict the input data and<br />

independent data within the LSD. The entire method was successfully validated in<br />

field conditions and small scale plate sinkage tests.<br />

� Soil density increase after the passage of tracks could be predicted using a track<br />

specific in-situ VCL. Hence, it became obvious that tracks show a different com-<br />

paction behavior than tyres.<br />

� Triaxially derived VCLs are sensitive to the relationship of major and minor princi-<br />

pal stresses. Only if their relationships replicates true field conditions, a suitable<br />

VCL for soil compaction prediction can be gained.<br />

Ph.D. Thesis Dirk Ansorge (2007)<br />

176

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