Fundamentals of Tractor Design

This textbook offers a comprehensive review of tractor design fundamentals. Discussing more than hundred problems and including about six hundred international references, it offers a unique resource to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and also practical engineers, managers, test engineers, consultants and even old-timer fans. Tractors are the most important pieces of agricultural mechanization, hence a key factor of feeding the world. In order to address the educational needs of both less and more developed countries, the author included fundamentals of simple but proved designs for tractors with moderate technical levels, along with extensive information concerning modern, premium tractors. The broad technical content has been structured according to five technology levels, addressing all components. Relevant ISO standards are considered in all chapters. The book covers historical highlights, tractor project management (including cost management), traction mechanics, tires (including inflation control), belt ground drives, and ride dynamics. Further topics are:  chassis design, diesel engines (with emission limits and installation instructions), all important types of transmissions, topics in machine element design, and human factors (health, safety, comfort). Moreover, the content covers tractor-implement management systems, in particular ISOBUS automation and hydraulic systems. Cumulative damage fundamentals and tractor load spectra are described and implemented for dimensioning and design verification. Fundamentals of energy efficiency are discussed for single tractor components and solutions to reduce the tractor CO2 footprint are suggested.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h. c. Karl Theodor Renius holds a diploma in Mechanical Engineering (1965) and a PhD in Hydraulics (1973) from the TU Braunschweig, Germany. From 1973 to 1981, he was Manager of DEUTZ Advanced Tractor Engineering at the new KHD Development Center in Cologne. He then became Manager of DEUTZ Tractor Development at KHD in Cologne. During the same period, he was appointed as an honorary lecturer on tractor design at RWTH Aachen. From 1982 to 2003 he served as a Full Professor and Head of the Institute of Agricultural Machinery at the Technical University Munich (TUM), Germany. Since his retirement in 2003, he has served as Honorary Head of the section “Mobile Machinery” at the Institute of Automotive Technology, at TUM, Germany. During his professional career, he was involved in major international projects. His areas of expertise include agricultural mechanization and tractor design; drive trains, hydraulics and terramechanics of tractors and mobile machinery; cumulative damage in fatigue; global product planning; technology management and technology transfer.