Fuel consumption during cereal and rape harvesting and methods of its reduction.

The engine uses fuel even when the combine-harvester does not work, and during its operation when it passes through the stubble, and harvests the crop. When the combine-harvester with single threshing-separation rotor stops, the technological drives are switched off and the rotation frequency of the engine (the power of which is 343 kW) is minimized from 2100 min-1 to 1200 min-1, it uses by 27.3 l h-1 less fuel. When combine-harvester operates in idle mode passing through the stubble with the switched on technological drives at the speed of 8 km h-1, the hourly fuel consumption is 35.7±0.3 l h-1. When the drives are switched off and the rotation speed of the motor is reduced from 2100 to 1000 min-1, the fuel consumption is only 14.8±0.8 l h-1, at the operation speed of combine-harvester of 8 km h-1. During rape harvesting, when the stubble height is increased from 0.2 to 0.3 m, the hourly fuel consumption decreases by 4.9±0.5 l h-1, and when the rotation of the threshing-separation rotor is increased from 500 to 650 min-1 the fuel consumption increases by 5.2±1.2 l h-1 additionally. When combine-harvester is supplied with the rational flows of winter wheat, barley and winter rape (14.5, 12.0 and 10.0 kg s-1, respectively) during the operation the average hourly fuel consumption of the combine-harvester is as follows: for winter wheat 90.1±1.6 l h-1, barley 80.5±2.8 l h-1, and winter rape 71.3±0.4 l h-1. The fuel consumption to harvest one ton of winter wheat grain is 2.8 l t-1, barley 2.7 l t-1, and winter rape 4.0 l t-1. When the fuel is planned for the next harvesting season the average operation time of combine-harvester, its idle running and downtime should be estimated.