RESEARCH ON SOIL FRAGMENTATION CHARACTERISTICS BASED ON FRACTAL DIMENSION AND IMAGE PROCESSING

Abstract

ABSTRACT To improve the complex process of judging the degree of soil fragmentation during potato-soil separation and to establish a fast and effective judging method. Soil drop experiments were performed using sandy soil from the potato growing region of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. The effects of soil moisture content, hardness, volume, drop height, inclination of the separating sieve and composition of the separating sieve rod on soil fragmentation were investigated. The fractal dimension and image processing used to quantify soil fragmentation and scattering and obtain quantitative indicators of soil fragmentation. The results showed that the following factors influenced soil fragmentation in descending order of statistical significance: soil hardness, fall height and soil volume. The softer the soil was, the greater the fall height; the larger the soil volume was, the greater the fragmentation. Meanwhile the correlation between the two indicators is extremely high, simplifying assessment of the degree of soil fragmentation. This study clearly shows the influence of the intrinsic physical properties of soil and the external physical parameters of potato excavators on the characteristics of crushed soil. The results can provide a basis for improving the efficiency of potato-soil separation and designing more efficient devices for harvesting potatoes.

Keywords

• soil drop fragmentation
• fractal dimension
• image processing
• sandy soil
• potato-soil separation