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Design of Farm Machinery

By Prof. Hifjur Raheman   |   IIT Kharagpur
Learners enrolled: 621   |  Exam registration: 10
ABOUT THE COURSE:
This course will cover the components, working principles and power requirement of different farm machinery equipment used in preparing seed bed, sowing, liquid chemical application, harvesting and threshing. Design of each of these equipment will be covered in details along with parameters required for their performance evaluation. In addition, design of unmanned seeder with precise dropping of seeds, electric vertical conveyor, unmanned liquid chemical applicator and solar energy operated paddy thresher will also be covered. This will enrich the knowledge of students and researchers interested in the field of farm machinery and will help them in designing and developing efficient machinery for improving mechanization in agriculture.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Students and Faculty of Agricultural Engineering Colleges, Industry professionals and researchers working in the area of farm machinery and precision agriculture.

INDUSTRY SUPPORT:
1. M/s John Deere India Pvt. Ltd.
2. M/s Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd.
3. M/s Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE) Ltd.
4. M/s Shaktiman Rotavator
5. M/s Dashmesh Agro Works

Summary
Course Status : Upcoming
Course Type : Core
Language for course content : English
Duration : 12 weeks
Category :
  • Agricultural and Food Engineering
  • Product Design
Credit Points : 3
Level : Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date : 20 Jan 2025
End Date : 11 Apr 2025
Enrollment Ends : 27 Jan 2025
Exam Registration Ends : 14 Feb 2025
Exam Date : 26 Apr 2025 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.


Page Visits



Course layout

Week 1: 
Components and working principles of tillage implements (active, passive and combination) used for seed bed preparation. Forces acting on passive tillage implements (mould board plough, disk plow and disk harrow) during operation and design of these implements.

Week 2: 
Components and working principle of cultivator and spike tooth harrow. Forces acting on these implements during their operation. Design of a tractor drawn cultivator and a spike tooth harrow.
Solving problems related to design of passive tillage implements. 

Week 3: 
Components of active tillage implements, their working principles. Forces acting on the working elements of active tillage implements. Design of a tractor operated powered disk harrow. 

Week 4: 
Design of a tractor operated rotavator. Solving problems related to design of active tillage implements 

Week 5: 
Concept of using combination tillage implements. Classification of combination tillage implements, power requirement of combination tillage implements
Design of combined offset disk harrow (front gang powered and rear gang unpowered) and rota-cultivator

Week 6: 
Measurements of performance parameters for evaluating passive, active and combination tillage implements
Solving problems related to performance evaluation of combined tillage implements

Week 7: 
Different sowing equipment and components of sowing equipment. Working principle of different metering mechanisms. BIS standard for designing sowing equipment. Design of a tractor drawn seed drill.
Solving problems related to design of sowing equipment.

Week 8: 
Design of a multi-crop drum seeder. Design of unmanned paddy seeder for wetland. Design concept for precision dropping of seeds with a tractor drawn seed drill. Performance parameters for evaluation of any sowing equipment.

Week 9: 
Need for liquid chemical applicators, their classification. Components of liquid chemical applicator. Working principle of commonly used knapsack sprayer and tractor drawn boom type liquid chemical applicator.

Week 10: 
Design of a tractor drawn boom type liquid chemical applicator (selection of tank, agitator, pump and atomizer). Determination of droplet size and their distribution, factors affecting droplet size distribution. Testing of liquid chemical applicator both in the laboratory and in the field. Design of a solar energy operated unmanned boom type liquid chemical applicator

Week 11:
Machinery for harvesting of forage and cereal crops and their components. Different cutting mechanisms used for harvesting. Design of a tractor drawn rota-slasher. Design of an electric vertical conveyor reaper for harvesting cereal crops. Design of an onion harvester and a cabbage harvester. 

Week 12: 
Basic mechanism of threshing, different threshing equipment and classification of threshers. Power requirement of any threshing equipment. Factors affecting performance of a thresher and parameters for performance evaluation of a thresher. Design of a spike tooth type thresher for cereal crops. Design of a solar energy operated wire-loop type paddy thresher

Books and references

1. Bernacki, H., Haman, J., Kanafojski, C. (1972). Agricultural machines, Theory and Construction (Vol. I and II).
2. Kepner, R.A., Bainer, R., & Barger, E.L. (1978). Principle of Farm Machinery (3rd edn.). The AVI Publishing Company, Inc. USA.
3. Norton, R.L. (2012). Machine Design an integrated approach (pp. 182–192). Pearson Education, Inc.
4. Srivastava, A. K., Goering, C. E., Rohrbach, R. P. & Buckmaster, D. R. (2006). Engineering Principles of Agricultural Machines (2nd edition).
5. Raheman, H. and Sarkar P. (2024). Tillage machinery- Passive, active and combination, Springer Publication.

Instructor bio

Prof. Hifjur Raheman

IIT Kharagpur
Prof. H. Raheman is at Agricultural and Food Engineering Department of IIT Kharagpur since 1999. He has more than 30 years of teaching and research experience in the field of Farm Machinery and Power. He has taught several courses related to Farm Machinery and Power to UG/PG/PhD students. Prof. Raheman has completed 6 Sponsored Research Projects related to development of farm machinery as Principal Investigator. He has 9 patents to his credit out of which six patents are related to design and development of farm machinery. He has published one book on Tillage machinery (Springer publication) and developed one NPTEL course on Traction Engineering for Agricultural Engineering students. Till now, he has supervised 17 PhD students and published 115 research papers in scopus indexed journals. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers (ISAE) and the Institution of Engineers (IE) India and a long standing member of American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). He is the recipient of Jyoti award (2010) and Commendation Medal (2015) from ISAE.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: April 26, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kharagpur .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team


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