Citation

Hunter AGM. Int. J. Veh. Des. 1981; 2(3): 289-298.

Affiliation

Scott Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Midlothian, Scotland

Copyright

(Copyright © 1981, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

On sloping land, especially grassland, many accidents are caused by agricultural tractors and the equipment they are towing sliding downhill, even when the tractor brakes are applied. The maximum slope on which a tractor with equipment can be driven without sliding is known as the critical slope. The critical slope for a tractor towing a forage harvester and trailer is shown to be considerably less than that for a tractor alone, and the reasons for this arising from the design of forage harvesting equipment are given. Safety depends on having a high value for critical slope, and the factors affecting this are discussed. Using a four-wheel drive tractor and having brakes on the forage harvester and trailer is shown to produce a large increase in critical slope.