Browsing by Author "Balasooriya, CP"

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item: Conference-Full-text
Design of power weeder for low land paddy cultivation
(2013-11-15) Ratnaweera, AC; Rajapakse, NN; Ranasinghe, CJ; Thennakoon, TMS; Kumara, RS; Balasooriya, CP; Bandara, MA
Lack of man power has been identified as one of the major problems for the sustainability of the Sri Lankan paddy industry. Hence transplanters and seeders were well developed as a step for mechanization. However, weeding method is still not well developed up to mechanization. Therefore, our main objective is to design and fabrication of a power weeder. Weeding ability will be optimized by weeding three rows simultaneously. The machine is designed to use in the fields, cultivated by using mechanized seeder or mechanized transplanter introduced by Farm Machinery Research Centre (FMRC), Sri Lanka. The double-action weeding drums will be driven by a small 1.3 kW gasoline engine, that can enable removal of weeds, while facilitating the forward motion of the machine. In addition, the conical shaped weeding drums will be designed to loose-up soil without harming the paddy. Totally six drums will be used, in such a way that rear three drums have high angular velocity with respect to the front drums. A novel maneuvering method for row changing when the machine is in paddy fields also introduced in the design. More than 5-fold improvement of weeding efficiency in terms of weeding time is expected in this design. Further, a significant improvement of weeding quality is also expected in this design.
item: Conference-Full-text
Sustainable farming through mechanization: Development of a bund making machine
(2013-11-15) Pathirana, PHS; Bandara, PC; Ratnaweera, AC; Balasooriya, CP; Bandara, MA
As the decreasing rural population of Sri Lanka is becoming increasingly responsible for feeding the growing urban population, increase in productivity of agriculture has become an essential feature in stepping towards sustainability. As younger generation avoids the cultivation, the labour shortage has become very significant. To motivate the young people in to agriculture, mechanization plays a vital role. This paper describes about one such mechanization, which is done on replacing manual bund making process in low land paddy fields. Bund making is usually done in two steps using the mamotee; bund clearing and mud plastering. Hence two separate attachments have been developed for the two steps separately. For bund clearing, a simple cutter with a height adjusting mechanism has been developed and tested. This attachment is designed for a two-wheel tractor as it was the most preferred tractor among Sri Lankan farmers. A new concept was tested for bund plastering, as a direct attachment to the tractor. A closed rectangular channel which has a curve along its length has been suggested to convey mud towards the bund. The flowing ability of mud was supposed to be utilized in this new concept. Mechanizing the mud plastering process would be an entirely a new innovative concept and lot of empirical investigations are needed during the testing of the attachments. The two attachments were fabricated with a minimum cost and field-testing was conducted to check the proper functionality of the two attachments. The bund clearing attachment worked successfully though several modifications were to be made. The mud plastering concept failed during testing. Approximately about 30-fold productivity gain in terms of time consumption is expected with the introduction of this mechanization compared to the conventional methods currently used by the farmers.