A research on improving distribution evenness in rotary fertilizer spreader

ABSTRACT Ph. D. Thesis A RESEARCH ON IMPROVING DISTRIBUTION EVENNESS IN ROTARY FERTILIZER SPREADER Yıldıran YILDIRIM Atatürk University Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences Department of Agricultural Machinery Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mazhar KARA Fertilizer is an important and expensive input to obtain a higher yield per unit area. The prices of fertilizer and fuel have been increasing based on increases in the price of energy. For this reason, the working quality and efficiency in machines used in agriculture should be increased. Therefore, the working quality and efficiency of rotary fertilizers, which are widely used due to simplicity, low price and high spreading width, should be increased. A rotary distributing unit with two discs mounted on one frame was developed and the combinations of distributing unit parameters giving the best results in terms of working quality and efficiency were determined. The concentric disc were rotating together clockwise with the same revolution rate; the upper disc was spreading fertilizer to the left and right sides of forward direction of the spreader and the lower disc was spreading fertilizer onto axis of forward direction. An effective working width of 16 m was obtained with triple superphosphate at the minimum CV value of 7.72% and an effective working width of 15 m was obtained with calcium ammonium nitrate at the minimum CV value of 6.14%. The highest values of effective working width were found to be 20.00 m and 17.50 m for triple superphosphate and calcium ammonium nitrate at the CV values of 10.01% and 15.57%, respectively. The rotary fertilizer spreader including a rotary distributing unit with two discs mounted on one frame, which was developed in this study, had better results than the rotary fertilizer spreaders which have been widely used in practice, in terms of working quality and efficiency. 2002, 202 pages Keywords: Fertilizer, rotary fertilizer spreader, distribution pattern, fertilizer distribution evenness, effective working width.