• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.16 no.8
• /
• pp.5051-5059
• /
• 2015

Structural behaviour of the front loader for an agricultural tractor was analyzed for three impact test conditions: drop and catch, corner pull, and corner push. Rigid-body dynamic, transient structural, and static structural analyses were conducted using a commercial finite element software. Analysis of the drop and catch test dealt with the case that the bucket located at the maximum elevation was dropped and catched through three steps. Analysis of the corner pull test dealt with the case that the bucket constrained to the ground by a chain at its corner was raised suddenly. Analysis of the corner push test dealt with the case that the corner of the bucket collided with an obstacle. Results of analyses of the three test conditions showed that maximum stress occurs at the geometrically discontinuous location in the mount and is caused from local stress concentration. Results of the present research can be utilized as a guideline to achieve more reliable and safe structural design of the front loaders.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2010.05a
• /
• pp.1177-1178
• /
• 2010

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.109-119
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the structural safety of the front-end loader for the 90 kW class of agricultural tractors in impact test conditions. Deformation and stress on the loader under the impact test conditions are analyzed using the commercial finite element analysis software ANSYS. In previous research dealing with the initial design of the loader, the maximum stress occurred in the mount and exceeded the yield strength of the material. In this paper, an improved design of the mount of the loader was proposed to reduce the stress concentration in the initial design. The safety of the improved design was verified by performing rigid-body dynamics analysis, transient structural analysis, and static structural analysis under three impact test conditions: a drop and catch test, a corner pull test, a corner push test. It was found that the local stress concentration in the mount that appeared in the initial design was greatly reduced in the improved design, and that the maximum stresses occurred in the three impact test conditions are smaller than the yield strength. It is expected that the design improvement of the mount proposed in this study and the method of analysis may be effectively used to enhance structural safety in the development of new model front loaders in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.26-32
• /
• 2019

This study was conducted to analyze the stresses by impact loads on front-end loaders attached to tractors using flexible multi-body dynamics. The model was designed and validated by comparing previous experimental data with the simulation data obtained in this study. Nine sets of conditions were designed using three weights (500, 300, and 100 kg) loaded inside a bucket and three heights (1700, 1350, and 1000 mm) of the bucket from ground level. A parametric study was carried out at five locations for two types of parts of a front-end loader. All the safety factors for the five locations under all conditions were calculated and were greater than 1. Thus, the designs of the front-end loaders were structurally safe. Based on this study, front-end loaders attached to tractors can be designed effectively in terms of cost and safety.

• Journal of Drive and Control
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.60-70
• /
• 2015

A front-end loader (FEL) mounted on an agricultural tractor is one of the most commonly used implements for farm work. However, when the tractor carries material using the bucket attached to the FEL on a sloping ground, the materials can spill or roll back over the operator due to the tilted body, thereby requiring the bucket surface to remain level at a constant value regardless of varying slopes. In this study, an active system for controlling the angle of the FEL bucket on a tractor based on the real-time measurement of ground slopes was developed to enable the bucket to constantly remain level. A FEL simulator operated based on an electro hydraulic proportional valve (EHPV) was constructed in the laboratory to develop a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller forming a virtual electronic control unit (ECU) on the computer, which could automatically adjust the bucket angles depending on varying input angles while sending SAE-J1939 associated messages via CAN BUS to the EHPV. The different parameter values for the PID controller due to the gravity effect of the bucket were determined using a manual PID tuning method while assuming that the tractor travels on either an ascending slope or a descending slope. The developed PID control-based self-leveling system showed a mean of steady-state errors of within $1^{\circ}$ and a mean of delayed times of ~ 0.8s when the step input of $+20^{\circ}$ was given, implying that the developed system and control algorithm would be effective in maintaining the bucket angle at a certain value. Future studies include the improvement of the control algorithm to reduce such a time delay as well as the application of the developed algorithm to the FEL mounted on a tractor tested at a testing ground.

• Journal of Drive and Control
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.10-18
• /
• 2016

A front-end loader (FEL) mounted on an agricultural tractor is one of the most commonly used implements to mechanize routine agricultural tasks. When the FEL is used with a loaded bucket, careful operation is required to maintain safety and avoid spillage when the tractor passes a bump because a change in the gravity center of the tractor due to varied loadings can affect the stability of the tractor. Use of a boom suspension system consisting of accumulators and orifice dampers can be instrumental in reducing pitching vibrations while increasing the handling performance of the FEL-mounted tractor. The objective of this research was to reduce bump shocks by adding an orifice and a flow control valve to the original hydraulic circuit composed solely of accumulators. A simulation study was performed using the SimulationX program to investigate the effects of an accumulator and an orifice-throttle damper on bump shocks. Results showed that the peak pressure on a boom cylinder and the vertical acceleration of a bucket were significantly affected by use of both an accumulator and an orifice damper. In a field test conducted with a 75-kW tractor, the peak pressure of the boom cylinder, and the root mean square (RMS) vertical acceleration of the bucket and seat were reduced by on average, 23.0, 42.2, and 44.9% respectively, as compared to those measured with the original accumulator system, showing that an improved design for the accumulator hydraulic circuit can reduce bump shocks. Further studies are needed to design a tractor suspension system that includes the effects of cabin suspension and tires as well as dynamic analysis.