Innovative Approach in Development of an Attachment with Rotavator for Minimizing Dust Accumulation

Abstract

Rotavator is a tillage machine designed for preparing land suitable for sowing seed (without
overturning of the soil), for eradicating weeds, mixing manure or fertilizer into soil, to break up
and remove pastures for crushing clods etc. rotavator is a better implement which does the
operation like tillage, pulverizing and levelling of land at a time. Hence, the study was conducted
to improvise the working of rotavatorwith particular reference to minimize dust accumulation
near the operator including analysis of field efficiency of rotavator and effectiveness of the
attachment.Developed novel attachment consisted of a metal sheet (MS-14 gauge) equal to the
length of the rotavator bolted with a rubber belt suitably. The effective field capacity and theoretical field capacity of rotavator was observed as 0.42 ha/h
and 0.52 ha/h, respectively. Thus, field efficiency obtained was observed as 80.76 %.The
measurement of dust was performed by an instrument Respirable Dust Sampler (RDS) using air
flow rate and total suspended particulate matter in it. The effectiveness of the rotavator
attachment for minimization of dust accumulation to operator was obtained about 76%. The
attachment can easily be fabricated by a local manufacturer in affordable price. This also offers
simplicity in fitting, adjustments etc. during working in the field.