J. agric. Engng Res.

(11974) 19, 167-172

The Prediction of Tractor Field Performance

Z. KOLOZSI*; T. T. MCCARTHY+

A method of predicting tractor field performance is proposed and the results are compared
with the measured performance for a particular tractor. A condensed form of presenting the
results to the farmer is suggested.

1. Introduction
Tractor performance is quantified in order that tractor types may be compared to determine the
"bcst" one. Performance is also quantified so that for a particular tractor the "best" working
range may be discovered. There seems to be two major difficulties at present in achieving these
objectives.
The first difficulty concerns the performance itself. This is universally done by measurement
and is very time-consuming and expensive. Test reports tend to concentrate on T a r m a c a d a m as
the test surface and of course tractors do operate on T a r m a c a d a m type surfaces. However the
agricultural tractor spends the major part of its working life on surfaces like stubble, grass, loam
and sand. It would be useful therefore if test reports could produce performance figures for a
reasonable number of such working surfaces. To measure all the parameters of interest in all
gears would be prohibitive in terms of time and cost.
The second difficulty is the presentation of performance. A mass of tabular and graphical data
may be of interest, and perhaps of use, to the agricultural engineer but it does nothing for the
farmer who wants to operate his tractor to the best advantage on a given surface.
In this paper the authors have tackled these problems and offer their solutions. The one under-
lying assumption in the approach adopted is that some measurement is inevitable. The objective
then was to predict the field performance of a tractor, in each gear for a selected working surface,
while attempting to minimize the amount of measurement required.

2. Basic equations
2.1. Torque balance
Eqn (1) represents the tractor torque balance, where three sources of loss are considered:
input : losses+output
T --~ Cr+tlT+Rr+ Dr,
i.e. (l--r/)T ~ (D+R+C)r ... (1)
There are two constants in this equation which present some difficulty, i.e. r/and r.

2.2. Drawbar pull

Let us concentrate on one working surface and use the subscripts p for predicted and m for
measured. Then
(1--r/)T~ ~ (Op+R,.+Cp)r ... (2)
and (1--q)T,, = (D,,+R,,-?C,,)r ... (3)
Dividing Eqn (2) and Eqn (3):
Tp Dp + Rm--Cp
Tm Dm+R,,+C~"
* F a r m Machinery Research Institute, Hungary,
+ Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
167
168 TRACTOR FIELD PERFORMAN(I

LIST OF SY M BOLS
A constant for a selected gear, kp rev R rolling resistance, kp
min S slip
B constant for a selected gear, kp T engine torque, mkp
C equivalent towing force, kp TS travelling speed, km/h
D drawbar pull, kp TTS theoretical travelling speed, km/h
DH drawbar (D.B.) horsepower, hp tt transmission loss factor ( . - I)
G gear ratio ( > > 1)
K ratio of forward speed to engine speed, Subscripts:
(km/h) (rev/min) -~ j gear number
N engine speed, revs/min m measured
r rolling radius, m p predicted

Rewriting this as an explicit equation for D o, the predicted drawbar (D.B.) pull

D, = ( .Din @ RmTm~-Cm) T, - ( R m @ Co) . . . . (4)

Notice that the imponderables q and r have been eliminated from this equation.
Eqn (4) relates the predicted D.B. pull to the predicted engine torque, the predicted trans-
mission oil losses and to four measured constants. The equation does not predict what happens
in a given gear.

2.3. Predicted drawbar pull in gear

The effect of selecting a gear (gear ratio = Go) is introduced in two ways. Firstly the constants
in Eqn (4) are measured once in one gear, gear ratio Gin, for a chosen soil condition. Secondly
the authors have demonstrate& that the predicted transmission oil losses can be approximated by
straight lines with one such line for each gear.
Hence Co : A,njN~Bmj ... (5)
where N is the engine speed and Amj, Bmj are measured constants.
Notice that in Eqn (4) the engine torque Tp is a function of engine speed. Hence for a selected
gear the D.B. pull may be predicted for a selected engine speed:

DoJ = Gj D m @ R m @ C m Tt,__Rrn__AmjN __Bmj . . . . (6)

Gm T,.
The true independent variable in Eqn (6) is engine speed.

2.4. Predicted travelling speed

The major influence on the travelling speed is slip. For a particular tractor-surface configura-
tion this influence is described by the D.B. pull-slip curve. I f we are going to use engine speed as
the independent variable to link all predictions then we need to relate the travelling speed to
engine speed. This may be written firstly as:
TSpj = (1--S) TTSpj ... (7)
where TSpj is the predicted travelling speed in gear j,
TTSoj is the predicted theoretical travelling speed in gear./',
G m
and TTSpj = NKm--~- ... (8)
uj
Z. K O I , O Z S I ; T. T. M C C A R T H Y 169

where K,, is the measured ratio of forward speed, km/h, to engine speed and is measured once in
one gear, gear ratio Gin, on Tarmacadam. This would necessarily be done at low speed to mini-
mize the effect of slip.
Hence the predicted travelling speed in gear j is given by:

TSpj =~ (1 -S)NK,, G,,

a-7 . . . .
The value of slip in this equation is a function of D.B. pull, Dpj. So, for a given engine speed,
N, the D.B. pull may be predicted. This value of D.B. pull will produce a value of slip, S, from the
D.B. pull-slip curve which, when used in conjunction with the engine speed N, in Eqn (9) will
predict the travelling speed.

2.5. Predicted drawbar horse-power

Once the travelling speed and D.B. pull have been predicted the predicted D.B.h.p. is given
by:

Dpj ~ TSp~ ... (10)

DHpj -- 270.0
The D.B.h.p. has dimensions of metric h.p.

3. Measurements required
3.1. Once only measurements
The following measurements relate essentially to the tractor as a unit and are performed once
only.
(a) Engine characteristics. Measure the basic characteristics of torque vs engine speed and if
required fuel consumption vs engine speed.
(b) Transmission oil losses. The following tests are done by towing on Tarmacadam or similar
surface :
(i) The rolling resistance is measured by towing the tractor in neutral. This is done at a
sufficiently low speed to minimize the error introduced by transmission oil losses in neutral?
(ii) The tractor is towed in each gear on Tarmacadam. The towing force and engine
speed are measured at both a low and a high engine speed. This towing force is made up of
transmission loss equivalent towing force t and the rolling resistance which has been measured
above. Hence the equivalent towing force for the oil losses is available at two engine speeds
in each gear. Thus the straight line approximations are available as required by section 2.3.
(c) One drawbar pull test on Tarmacadam or similar surface is performed in one gear, gear
ratio G,,. Measure the D.B. pull (D,,) and the engine speed. Knowing the engine speed the engine
(T,,) torque is obtained from the engine characteristics, and the oil loss (C,,) can be obtained from
the straight line approximation. The engine speed should be such as to cause operation on the
relatively fiat part of the torque speed characteristic--otherwise a small error in the measurement
of speed would produce a large error in engine torque.
(d) One travelling speed test on Tarmacadam as required by section 2.4.

3.2. Measurements for each surface type

The following measurements relate to the tractor/surface interface: (1) measure the drawbar
pull-slip curve; (2) measure the rolling resistance (R).
170 TRACTOR FIELD PERFORMAN('I

25

5 ,, ~

5,
r~

40

30 /
/
/ ~

~g

0
0 4 8 t2 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 46
Orawbar putl {kp) ~ IOz

Fig. 1. Performance o f M F 165 tractor on Tarmacadam

IO0
~ " "~'~'~" ~ ' ~ - ~ ~ . . . . ~ . ~om
" ~', ..... -""-.--..~i,~ . . . . . .
9O
//-(/ "~..~. ---..........
80 .15)" ~"~
7o !1/I \,, ...~%~.
I(~" \ \ ....
6() -

50 il~ \\
40 J I I I I I I I J I I J
2 4 6 8 IO J2 J4 16 18 20 22 24 26
Travelling speed (kin/h)

Fig. 2. Representation of D.B. utilization

Z. KOLOZSI; T. T. MCCARTHY 171

4. Automation of prediction
To make full use of the method of prediction just outlined it was programmed for a digital
computer. For a given gear the following parameters are tabulated: D.B. pull (kp), slip (~o),
travelling speed (km/h), D . B . h . p . , fuel consumption (kG/h) and specific fuel consumption,
gr/h.p.h. There are basically two independent variables in the program-gear number and engine
speed.

4. I. Program input
For one soil condition the program receives data in the following sequence.
(a) Title and other miscellaneous information.
(b) Number of gears and gear ratios.
(c) Transmission oil loss data--the equivalent towing force and engine speed at two points
for each gear.
(d) D,,, R, C,,. T,, and the gear number in which the measurements were made.
(e) The tractor engine characteristics--engine speed, torque and fuel consumption. The
number of engine speed points used is not fixed so that individual characteristics may be
digitized in the most appropriate manner.
(f) The D.B. pull-slip characteristic which also has a variable number of input points.
(g) The travelling speed/engine speed ratio and the gear in which it was measured.
This input sequence is repeated for all soil conditions. Sections (d) and (f) only of the above
sequence will change with soil conditions; all other sections remain unaltered.

4.2. Program organization

The prediction part of the program consists of two loops, one within the other. The inde-
pendent variable for the outer loop is gear number while that for the inner loop is engine speed.
For a given engine speed the drawbar pull Dpj, is predicted. This is then used to obtain a corres-
ponding value of slip. Slip, however, has been read in as a table of values and so the slip between
these table values must be interpolated, in this case by a simple linear interpolation. Suppose the
predicted value, D~j, falls between two tabulated values D~ and DId+l); then for a given engine
speed

Spj = Si + D~j- -D~ (S~+1 ~ Si) . . . . (I I)

Dl+l- Di

4.3. Program size and timing

The program was written in FORTRAN IV and run on an IBM 360/67 in a time sharing mode.
There are 73 source statements, of which 50~o are concerned with input/output. The program
has been run with a level G compiler on the following problem: Massey Ferguson 165 on Tar-
macadam, stubble, sand and cultivated loam. There were 20 engine speed points on the engine
characteristic. To compile and run the Tarmacadam set took approximately 5 s, while to com-
pile and run the four sets together took about 7.5 s. Under a time sharing system there is obvi-
ously a degree of variation in these times.

5. Results of prediction
The performance of an MF 165 on Tarmacadam has been reported by the N.[.A.E., 2 and was
used as a check on the proposed method of prediction. All measurements required by section 3
were taken from the N.[.A.E. report and from Reference (1), The rolling resistance was 60 kp.
172 TRACTOR FIELD PERFORMANCI

The results are presented in Fig. 1 and are plotted with D.B. pull as abscissa. The important
prediction is that of D.B.h.p. The predicted results are shown as continuous curves and the test
report measurement points are superimposed. The authors feel that the results are sufficiently
close to justify the prediction method.

5.1. Presentation o f results

Fig. 1 presents the tractor performance in one of a number of accepted f o r m s ) For the tech-
nically qualified this form of presentation conveys much valuable information; for the farmer it
is beyond comprehension. There is a need to condense all of this information into a usable and
useful form for the farmer, based on what the farmer requires of a tractor. The authors accept
that, in agricultural applications, the farmer should optimize the utilization of D.B.h.p. 4 How
can the performance of a tractor be condensed to a form that the farmer can understand and can
use to optimize his utilization of D.B.h.p. ? The authors feel that the graphical representation of
Fig. 2 goes some way towards achieving this.
The diagram contains 4 plots, one for each ground type as indicated. The ordinate is the D.B.
h.p. plotted as a percentage of maximum h.p. and the abscissa is travelling speed. It is obtained
from Fig. 1 by drawing a continuous curve through the D.B.h.p. peaks, i.e. a stepless transmission
characteristic. The peak of this curve is taken as 100~. The drawbar pull(s) corresponding to
9 5 ~ , 9 0 ~ , etc., of this peak value can be read off from Fig. 2, and thus the travelling speed
obtained. Obviously the performance indicated by Fig. 2 is not obtainable in practice because of
the basic assumption involved but it does indicate clearly to the farmer how speed should be
changed to improve his utilization factor. There are two very interesting features in Fig. 2. One
is that the optimum points for the 4 surfaces are almost the same. The other feature is that if one
cannot operate at the optimum speed then one should travel faster than that speed since the
utilization factor falls less rapidly at higher speeds. This of course may not be possible for health
and safety reasons.

6. Conclusion
It seems reasonable to conclude that it is possible to predict, with acceptable accuracy, the field
performance of an agricultural tractor. By reducing the amount of time spent on measurement
and by using a simple computer program it should be possible to publish the performance of a
tractor over a greater range of working surfaces. The method of presentation of these results to
the farmer which has been proposed, while not accurate, should help the farmer in improving his
tractor performance.

Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations for
financial assistance for the work described in this paper.

REFERENCES
i McCarthy, T. T.; Kolozsi, Z. The measurement of tractor transmission losses. J. agric. Engng Res.,
1974 19 71
2 Test report no. 458. N.I.A.E., Silsoe, 1965
3 Baillie, W. F.; Vasey, G. H. Graphical representation of tractor performance. J. Inst. of Engrs Aust.,
1969 46 (6) 83
4 Reece, A. R. Two or four wheel drive. Farm Machine Design Engineering, February 1968