A Model of Vibratory Soil Cutting

<div class="htmlview paragraph">A lumped parameter model consisting of a spring and coulomb friction is developed to simulate soil cutting by a plow blade vibrating horizontally. The spring represents blade and soil elasticity; the coulomb friction represents soil strength. Predicted instantaneous and average forces agree favorably with those obtained experimentally for a sinusoidally vibrating blade in a compacted silty sand.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Results indicate that, for a given cutting speed, average force can be reduced by increasing frequency, displacement amplitude, and/or system stiffness. For practical design values of these parameters, the force can be reduced to 25% of the nonvibrating cutting force. Further reductions can be achieved only by large increases in the parameters.</div>