Substantiation of rational length of hitch frame for a wide-cut cultivator

Surface tillage, including cultivation, is an important component of crop growing technologies. The theory of cultivators is thoroughly studied, but at the same time the choice of hitch frame parameters is reduced to the recommendation of the ratio of working width of cultivator and its kinematic length, approximately equal to 1.3-1.5. This is due to the necessity of stabilizing the movement of cultivator relatively to the direction of tractor motion with the minimal materials consumption. However, theoretical research allowed to substantiate the assumption, that the mentioned recommendation is valid only for modular cultivators. This ratio should be increased for the wide-cut implements. Experimental research has shown that reduction of length of hitch frame of a wide-cut cultivator by 1.4 m (the ratio of working width and kinematic length equal approximately to 1.9) allows to reduce the weight of implement. Moreover, it allows to increase the utilization coefficient of operating time of soil cultivating unit by 4%, as compared with an implement having the length of hitch frame which meets well-established guidelines. Both compared cultivators ensure hundred-per-cent eradication of weeds. Thus, the change of implement parameters does not lead to the increase of probability of its angular displacement in horizontal plane, and to violation of the required degree of overlap of adjacent passes of the tines. The findings suggest that the decrease of kinematic length of agricultural machines and implements leads to the increase of their operation efficiency. An indirect conclusion of that is an assumption about the prospects of development and introduction of wide-cut machines and implements that are compact in the longitudinal direction.