THE USE OF SMART PIEZOCERAMICS FOR CULTIVATING THE SOIL IN AGRICULTURE

Abstract

The agriculture is a sector of the economy aimed at providing the population with food and obtaining raw materials for a number of industries. The agricultural industry is one of the most important sectors and is represented in almost all countries. The food security of states depends on the state of this industry. The plow is the main tool for cultivating the soil in agriculture. At present, we can observe various improvements in the technology for tillage and harvesting, while the main organ of cultivation has not undergone major changes, except for the introduction of more durable and reliable materials. However, tillage is still one of the most energy intensive operations in modern agricultural production. The use of the latest high-performance machinery and equipment while reducing metal consumption and energy consumption is one of the main objectives of the development of modern engineering. However, in this way there are limitations to the performance of traditional machines, the efficiency of which varies in the range of 0.19-0.38. One of the ways to improve tillage and reduce friction between the soil and the plow consists in the use of vibration technologies, which can have a significant effect. Vibration technique and technology are radically different from traditional prototypes. The use of vibration methods in various spheres of human activities and, in particular, in agriculture offers great prospects for accelerating technological progress on a qualitatively new basis. The aim of the work is to improve the cultivation working bodies by reducing the total amount of traction resistance (friction) of the soil on the surface of the ploughshare and reducing the sticking of the working bodies by using SMART PIEZOCERAMICS and vibration principles. The main features of smart designs are: embedded or surface mounted sensors; built-in or surface-mounted actuators; control element diagrams for the implementation of the monitoring system (which allow to process the data from the sensors to make an appropriate decision). The essence of this technology when used in the cultivation of the soil is as follows. The piezoceramic element is tightly located on the surface of the plow blade. Due to the presence of the piezoelectric element of direct and reverse piezoelectric effect, it can be used as an actuator (vibrator) or sensor. To determine the amplitude of oscillations of a piezoceramic element, numerical simulation has been performed using the COMSOL Multiphysics software package. By mathematical modeling, it has been established that the main resonant frequencies of the developed plow design correspond to 150, 2950, 4750, 6050, 13350, 17950, 18550 Hz. The maximum oscillation amplitude of the plow blade corresponds to a frequency of 18,550 Hz.