Abstract
Purpose: A chisel mounted on working implement, such as agricultural machinery used in irregular farming conditions, is subjected to highly variable fatigue loading during work. To ensure the safety of the chisel on a working implement for the duration of its service life, fatigue testing must be performed with the proper fatigue test load conditions. In this study, working loads for a chisel were developed by reconstructing loads from strain gage data collected during field tests and used to conduct fatigue tests on the chisel component. Methods: FE analysis with nCode software was utilized to select the proper quantity and locations of strain gages for load measurements. A fatigue test was performed to experimentally verify the fatigue strength of the chisel and to evaluate the validity of the load history developed with the load reconstruction technique. Results: A strain history for the chisel was obtained from data collected during field tests. The data was filtered for the 14-16 km/h speed range, connected, and merged. The chisel load history was developed using the load reconstruction technique. The resulting load history was expressed as a load spectrum using the rain-flow counting method. Conclusions: A fatigue test was conducted on a chisel under a constant load condition with an equivalent load amplitude and number of cycles, as calculated by Miner's Rule for linear damage accumulation. During the fatigue test, there were no cracks at any position. It is concluded that the fatigue test method proposed in this study can be utilized successfully as a durability evaluation method for the chisel.