Abstract
Purpose: It is to develop an agricultural three-directional dumping vehicle that can help farmers reduce intensive labor when carrying heavy loads and for easy dumping. In addition, a novel mechanism was applied for controlling the direction of the tilting cargo box by using a single hydraulic cylinder and simple apparatus. The overturning safety was analyzed to provide safe-use ground slope region of the vehicle to be used at upland fields and orchards. Methods: The developed three-directional dumping vehicle was constructed using a cargo box, vehicle frame, driving components, lifting components, and controller. The novel mechanism of controlling the dumping direction involves the operation of two latching bars, which selectively release or collapse the connecting edge between the vehicle frame and cargo box. A multibody dynamics analysis software (RecurDynV8R5) was used to determine the safe-use ground slope area when tilting the cargo box at slopes. A computer analysis was conducted by increasing the ground slope while rotating the vehicle when the cargo box comprised loads of 300 and 500 kg and stacking heights of 40 and 80 cm, respectively. Results: The three-directional dumping vehicle was successfully manufactured, and the cargo box was tilted at $37^{\circ}$ and $35^{\circ}$ for dumping forward and sideways. The latching bars were manually and selectively collapsed with the vehicle frame to control the dumping direction. When forward dumping, the safe-use ground slope was over $20^{\circ}$ in all vehicle directions and loaded conditions. Conclusions: A three-directional dumping vehicle was developed to reduce labor-intensive work in the farming environment. The user can easily control the dumping direction by using the control panel. The vehicle was safe to be used in most of the Korean upland fields and orchards (area over 96%) for the forward dumping.
