Effect of soil moisture content, dynamic load and wheel slippage in measuring traction in an indoor traction bed

A study was conducted to determine the effect of soil moisture content, dynamic load and wheel slippage in measuring traction. A single wheel test rig was developed to enable fundamental research on traction studies on tropical soil at the department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering of Federal University of Technology, Akure. This facility consists of a moving carriage with a trolley that moves in either forward or reverse directions on rails well above a soil bin powered by 2.2 kW, three phase induction motor. The present facility set up was able to operate in either towing test mode for tire motion resistance studies or driving test mode for tire net traction and tractive efficiency studies. The test tire on the moving carriage was powered to rotate by a motor with additional pull provided by a cable-pulley mechanism connected to a tower with hanging dead weights. All controls on the moving carriage were activated from the main control console. The developed facility was successfully tested to determine tractive efficiency for narrow wheels at a particular inflation pressure on clay soil. The single wheel test rig facility worked well and the research indicates that wheel load, wheel slippage, soil moisture content and inflation pressure has great effect on traction efficiency. Traction efficiency decreased as the wheel load and wheel slippage increased. The developed single wheel testing facility can perform traction tests in controlled soil conditions to study the effect of soil, tire and moisture parameters on the performance of the system.