A STUDY OF THE THREE-POINT HITCH FOR TRACTORS WHEN CONNECTED TO A ROTARY HARROW

The paper presents a further study of the three-point hitch mechanism for tractors connected to a rotary harrow. In this study, the joint reaction forces and the drive torques in the mechanism were analyzed and calculated when the implement was lowered onto the soil surface, during tillage operations under two different conditions, and when the implement was raised by means of the three-point hitch. Calculation was performed both manually with different operators and using different software packages in order to check the results. Some comparisons with the literature were possible. Results were promising, and demonstrate that the proposed method is reliable. In the future, these results can be compared with experimental data obtained on real tractors using sensorized ball joints on the three-point hitch. The method presented here is also suitable for tractors connected to other kinds of implement symmetrical to its median plane.