Development and Construction of an Instrumentalized Workbench With a Hydraulic Motor for Farm Machine Testing

This work addresses the design and the construction of an instrumentalized workbench with hydraulic motor. The primary purpose of estimating the consumed power for farm machines, as for example the power consumption on the drive shaft of a variable rate fertilizer targeted for applications in precision agriculture. The estimate of the consumed power is important for the better design of the transmission elements and for machines control and design, collaborating for the reduction of the mass and the costs of the prototype. The instrumentalized workbench was used to estimate the actual consumed power in fertilizer dosing devices used in precision agriculture, allowing the correct specification of the power system to drive and the validation of modeling and variable rate control. The aim is to measure and to evaluate the power consumption of a commercial fertilizer in different fertilization rates with usual fertilizer. The used methodology is based on the needs analysis, design and construction of an instrumented bench with hydraulic motor for fertilizer prototype testing. The experimental prototype was tested at the Innovation Center for Automatic Machines and Servo Systems (NIMASS) in UNIJUÍ University with support by IMASA, FINEP and CNPq. Tests with fertilizer mounted allowed the calculation of the consumed volumetric flow rates and the load pressure of the hydraulic motor, thus enabling the estimated consumed power. This research intends to contribute for the modeling and design of hydraulic systems applications in farm machines and the innovations development to technology transfer to manufacturer national company.