Reduction of Carbon Footprint Using Additive Inspired Design in Tractor Hydraulic Systems 2024-26-0070

Tractor is primarily used for Haulage and agricultural applications due to this high tractive effort. A tractor usage has been increased in recent times for its wide range of implement applications. Considering environmental factors and sustainability, restrictions are set on the Tractor emissions. This brings new challenge in the Tractor industry to reduce the carbon footprint. Conventional casting process involves preparation of die & mold, material removal and machining in the final stage to get the desired final product. Alternatively Additive Manufacturing Process (AMP) helps in creation of lighter and stronger parts by adding material layer by layer. By saving the material, weight of the overall Tractor is reduced which helps in reducing carbon footprint. But the disadvantage of this process is the limited availability and high cost of AMP material and lack of infrastructure/skill set for operation handling.

With the learnings of Additive Designs, generated many concepts with a new methodology which we call Additive Inspired Design. This Methodology has given very high level of design optimization even with conventional manufacturing processes. Develop designs without any boundaries (i.e., Additive approach) to achieve maximum optimization. Further reverse modifies the design to suit conventional manufacturing process thereby still achieving high level of optimization.

In this paper, present work discusses about virtual validation process for components developed using Inspired additive designs along with physical validation in lab. To predict the operational loads acting on hydraulic system from Real world Usage pattern (RWUP) performed MBD analysis to extract the load on different hitch points of the Hydraulic control valve system. Static Non-Linear analysis was performed on multiple design Iterations to meet the durability criteria. Finalized Inspired Control valve assembly is successfully tested in lab and implemented successfully. With the help of inspired design, 37 tons of C02 emissions annually (220 Trees) is eliminated by achieving 128 tons raw material savings. Same approach can be deployed to all Tractor components to achieve Optimum designs to reduce the carbon footprint further.