Great Plains 1200TM Vertical Tillage Steady State Model

The gifs capture critical motion of the system in steady state operation.</p><p dir="ltr">This independent engineering study evaluates the mechanical behavior and loading of a vertical tillage disk system under representative field operating conditions. The project was developed as a practical application of mechanical design, kinematics, fluid/soil interaction modeling, and structural analysis.</p><p dir="ltr">A parametric model of the tillage system was created to examine disk geometry, operating speed, penetration depth, angular velocity, and slip.

Field-derived measurements and video analysis were used to estimate translational and rotational motion, while the submerged portion of the disk was discretized to calculate local velocity components and resulting soil-interaction forces.</p><p dir="ltr">The project emphasizes engineering judgment in situations where operating conditions and material interactions cannot be defined exactly. Particular attention is given to assumptions, model limitations, sensitivity to operating conditions, and the relationship between analytical predictions and real-world machine behavior.</p><p dir="ltr">The purpose of this work is to demonstrate an end-to-end engineering process: defining an open-ended problem, developing a physics-based model, interpreting imperfect field data, performing structural analysis, and communicating results through a formal technical report.</p>