Transmission of Vibrations Through Linkage Systems of Agricultural Machines

Vibrations produced by agricultural machines are transmitted to the operator seat, inducing comfort and safety problems. The dynamics of the complex mechanical system, composed by the tractor with the operating machine, must be considered to predict the vibrations transmitted to the operator seat. In this paper, models of the tractor, of the typical linkage systems and of mounted or trailed operating machines are proposed. The sub-structuring approach is exploited to obtain a model of the complete mechanical system by coupling the models of the component subsystems. Transmissibility and inertance frequency response functions are computed to evaluate the effect of the linkage system dynamics on the vibrations of the operator seat.