Static Structural Analysis of Rotary Weeding Blades using CAD Software

Abstract

Rotary weeding blade is one of the important component for a tractor operated rotary weeder and need to be designed in such a way that they have enough strength in order to avoid the unbalancing force on the rotary weeder. The application of computer aided design (CAD) for structural analysis of rotary weeding blades on the basis of finite element method was carried out using ANSYS-software for three types of weeding blades viz., L, C and J-type. The different types of weeding blades are geometrically constrained with preparation of solid model and the simulation is done with actual field performance rating parameters along with boundary conditions. Prediction of stress distributions among the blades is important for the designers and manufacturers in order to minimize the errors and breakdowns. The analysis showed that, the maximum and minimum principal stresses were found to be 439.35 and 9.09 MPa respectively with a total deformation of 3.05 mm for L-type blade. Whereas for C-type blade, these values were 729.9 and 38.84 MPa respectively with a 4.65 mm total deformation. While the maximum and minimum principal stresses for J-type blade were found to be 362.68 and 17.7 MPa respectively with a total deformation of 1.65 mm. It was observed that, the stress values were within the limits of the yield stress of the material (758 MPa). Hence, the blades designed and selected for the study could be adopted for the development of the rotary weeder.