Numerical Simulation of Soil-plough Mouldboard Interaction

The objective of this investigation was to study and simulate the plough mouldboard soil interaction phenomena. A numerical simulation of the interaction between the soil and the plough mouldboard was performed by utilising the ‘finite volumes’ numerical approach. Simulation was carried out by utilising a three-dimensional free-surface model as well as a soil medium with the constitutive relationship of a non-Newtonian pseudo-plastic material. Such a ‘virtual’ material could properly simulate the global effects of the plough mouldboard – soil interaction of the test soil (sandy loam). Field tests were performed to validate the model using piezo-resistive transducers to detect the normal stresses on 14 points located on the working surface of a plough mouldboard. The stress distribution was then derived by using spatial interpolation and the results compared with the numerical simulation data. The maximum error detected by comparing numerical results with the experimental data set was less than 10%.