*Article* **Simulation Analysis and Experiments for Blade-Soil-Straw Interaction under Deep Ploughing Based on the Discrete Element Method**

**Jin Zhang 1,2, Min Xia 1, Wei Chen 1, Dong Yuan 1, Chongyou Wu <sup>1</sup> and Jiping Zhu 1,\***


**Abstract:** The desirable sowing period for winter wheat is very short in the rice-wheat rotation areas. There are also lots of straw left in harvested land. Deep rotary tillage can cover rice straw under the surface to increase soil organic matter. Clarifying the effect of the rotary tillage blade on the soil and straw, as well as analyzing the movement patterns and forces on the straw and soil, are essential to investigate the deep rotary tillage process in order to solve the problems of energy consumption and poor straw burial effect of deep tillage and deep burial machinery. In this study, we built the interaction model of rotary blade-soil-straw through the discrete element method to conduct simulation and identified the factors that affect the power consumption and operation quality of the rotary blade. The simulation process reflects the law of rotary blade-soilstraw interaction, and the accuracy of the simulation model has been verified by field trials. The simulation test results show that the optimized structural parameters of the rotary tillage blade were 210 mm, 45 mm, 37◦ and 115◦ (R, H, α and β) designed based on this theoretical model can cultivate to a depth of 200 mm. The operating parameters were 8π rad/s for rotational speed and 0.56 m/s for forward speed, respectively; the simulated and field comparison tests were conducted under the optimal combination of parameters, and the power, soil breaking rate, and straw burial rate were 1.73 kW, 71.34%, and 18.89%, respectively; the numerical error rates of simulated and field test values were 6.36%, 5.42%, and 8.89%, respectively. The accuracy of the secondary model was verified. The simulation model had good accuracy at all factor levels. The model constructed in this study can provide a theoretical basis and technical reference for the interaction mechanism between rotary tillage and soil straw, the optimization of machine geometry, and the selection of operating parameters.

**Keywords:** rotary blade soils; straw burying; discrete element method; interaction

Received: 28 November 2022 Revised: 22 December 2022 Accepted: 27 December 2022 Published: 5 January 2023

**Citation:** Zhang, J.; Xia, M.; Chen, W.; Yuan, D.; Wu, C.; Zhu, J. Simulation Analysis and Experiments for Blade-Soil-Straw Interaction under Deep Ploughing Based on the Discrete Element Method. *Agriculture* **2023**, *13*, 136. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/agriculture13010136 Academic Editor: Tao Cui

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
