ZLV Online

Abstract

In forestry, the problem of soil compaction and rut formation by the forestry machinery multipass has come to the forefront in the past few years, which is becoming an important input information in the decision to deploy suitable harvesting and transport machines for the particular field conditions. Estimation of soil damage, rut formation and soil compaction when passing forestry machinery is very important in terms of root system destruction and soil erosion. Therefore, the possibility of forecasting track formation dependent on the parameters of the forestry technique and its number of passes has become topical. One of the most widespread empirical methods to predict the vehicle’s driving performance in off-road conditions is the WES method. The paper deals with the description of some WES calculation models for determining rut depth when passing a forwarder with a load capacity of 5 t and comparing the rut depth values calculated using this method with the measured values. At the same time, the paper compares results of the rut depth calculations with the forwarder multipass and, on the basis of the measured values, compares the multipass coefficients. For more information see Summary at the end of the article.