Skidders Fuel Consumption in Two Different Working Regions and Types of Forest Management

Abstract

For the needs of fuel consumption analysis, a database for a period of 2 years was created for three types of skidders operating in two different management methods—even-aged and selective forests. A total of 436 skidders were processed in the database, of which 255 skidders worked in even-aged forests and 181 skidders worked in selective forests. The average consumption of skidders in even-aged forests ranged from 1.38 to 1.65 L/m3 or from 7.81 to 9.34 L/PMH, while in selective forests, the average consumption ranged from 1.06 to 1.34 L/m3 or from 6.49 to 7.10 L/PMH. The obtained results indicate higher fuel consumption for all three types of skidders in regular forest management. There is no statistically significant difference in fuel consumption between the studied skidders. Comparing fuel consumption in L/PMH, we notice that there was an increase in fuel consumption in relation to the age of the skidder.

Keywords

• skidder
• fuel consumption
• selective forests
• even-aged forests
• Croatia