Within forestry it is common to fertilize approximately 10 years before the final felling of the forest. Forest fertilization increases the volume of the forest and contributes to a better climate and economic gain for the forest owners. Fertilization is mainly performed by using customized spreading tractors or spread by using helicopters. In recent years another solution has evolvedbeen developed by using UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to spread the fertilizer granules. Spreading of fertilizer granules with a UAV aimsis considered to be a better solution in terms of a environmental point of viewmore environmentally sustainable compared to spreading granules with a tractor or helicopter. This bachelor thesis has aimed to develop a complete designconstruction basis for a spreader solution system in cooperation with Nordluft Automation AB. The spreader solution system has been designed to be applicable on a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and to be used for spreading fertilizing granules over forest areas. The spreading of fertilizing granules increases the volume of the forest and contributes to a better climate and economic gain for the forest owners. The product development process of the spreader initiated with interpreting the spoken needs of the end product into quantifiable metrics and a product specification. External and internal search of information within the product area was performed to gain better knowledge of spreader solutions and existing products on the market. After the search of information, several brainstorming sessions was performed to generate concepts of a possible spreader solutionsystem. Early in the process it was decided that the generated concepts should involve a modular product architecture. The product development process was performed with “Design for Manufacturing and Assembly” methodologygood manufacturability in mind to achieve a flexible and economically sustainable spreading solution useable for different kind of forest fertilizers. The concept generation resulted in a spreading system with two modules. One module for controlling the flow of granules and one that had a purpose ofmodule for spreading out the granules. 6 concepts of each module went on to a concept evaluation process where the winner was decided by using the Pugh matrix system. The final concept consisted of a knife-gate valve as the flow control module and a rotating disc with vanes module for spreading out the granules. The spreader system is connected to the power supply and control hub located on the drone, it is then mounted on the granule container that is the mainframe of the drone. This allows a desired amount of granules to flow to the rotation disc for spreading. Detail design of the concept was performed with the Computer Aided Design (CAD) -program SolidWorks. Theoretical calculations of the spreader solutions components were made to ensure that the spreader solution was correctly dimensioned according to the product specification. An experiment of granular mass flow was performed to dimension the flow control modules orifice correctly since it was regarded as one of the most critical needs stated by Nordluft. The end result of this thesis may be used by Nordluft Automation AB to develop and manufacture a prototype of the spreader solution.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-355015 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Melin, Simon, Appelgren, Victor |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Industriell teknik, Uppsala universitet, Industriell teknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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