Effective power and hourly fuel consumption demanded by set tractor- coffee harvester in function of adequacy tractor ballasting

Abstract

The mechanized gathering process of sweeping coffee is extremely important to reduce the losses of fruit not used in the harvesting operation. But this operation usually has a low operational performance and a high cost per unit collected in this way any measures that can effectively reduce costs increase the viability of the operation. In this sense, studies on adequacy tractor mass for each operation show improvement in energy use, reducing fuel consumption. So, this study aimed to quantify the fuel consumption and effective power along the process of a tractor 4x2 FWD pulling the coffee harvester. I was used as treatments three ballasting settings, these being equivalent the relations power to weight of 36, 39 and 42 kg hp-1 working with and without activated FWD, randomized statistically, with 10 repetitions each configuration. It was conclude that, at low power-weight ratio, the front wheel drive assist had no significant influence on the hour fuel consumption. Already in the configuration with higher ratio, the use of front wheel drive favored in reducing fuel consumption and better energy use.