Compression Strength and Critical Impact Speed of Typical Fertilizer Grains

Abstract

The application of fertilizer is necessary for the growth and yield of crops, especially for paddy rice. Precision application is important for the fertilizer utilization rate and sustainable development of agriculture. However, the crushing of fertilizer grains will reduce the quality of fertilization, for the decrease in the size and mass of the fertilizer particles and the degree of crushing mainly depend on the physical and mechanical properties of the fertilizer grains. In this study, the compression strength and critical impact speed of four typical commonly used fertilizer grains, a compound fertilizer of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK compound fertilizer), organic fertilizer, large granular urea, and small granular urea, were measured and analyzed. The static compression test was carried out using a TMS-Pro texture analyzer and the results show that the four kinds of fertilizer grains are brittle materials, and their elastic moduli are 208 MPa, 233 MPa, 140 MPa, and 107 MPa, respectively; the theoretical impact model of fertilizer granules is established based on the compression test result and Hertz elastic contact theory, the theoretical formula for the critical impact speed of fertilizer grains is derived, and the theoretical critical impact strength and speed are worked out. An image capture system for the impact process of fertilizer grains was developed, and the impact test was conducted. The results show that the critical impact speed of the four kinds of fertilizer grains decreases with the increase in granule size, while the variance analysis shows that the effect is not significant. The comparison of the experimental results with the theoretical values shows that the theoretical formula could be used to predict the trends of the critical impact speed of fertilizer grains. The model was optimized with the MATLAB 2018 function fitting tool based on the test and analysis. The goodness of fit of the formula is 0.824, which is 13.43% greater than that of the original theoretical formula, indicating that the modified formula based on the compression test data might estimate the critical impact speed of the granular fertilizer with brittle material properties more accurately. The results may provide a reference for the parameter design of a precision fertilization machine.