Club of bologna proceedings

Pierre ABEELS 
Belgium 
My first comment was the same as Prof. 
Auernhammer’s. I believe that when I have to 
teach agricultural engineering somewhere in 
central Africa, we need to have more data 
about the plants than about the machines. 
According to what Prof. Heege has shown, we 

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must have a kind of follow-up of the growth 
needs of each seed or plant, to adjust the 
tools, to adjust the procedures we are 
following using machines, or even horses and 
cattle. That was my first comment. Now I 
have a question to Mr. Chamen. The main 
aspect of table 1 in his paper is that some 
fundamental technological aspects of tyre 
building help for soil conservation. First: bias 
tyres are better on and for soft soil - and I put 
the accent on soft soil. Trafficability on lanes 
is quite different than on soft soil. So if bias 
tyres are better for agriculture, why are they 
no longer offered? Because radial tyre 
building is cheaper for the industry. And the 
main argument is that radial tyres are better 
on roads. So a technological aspect of tyre 
building needs to improve: building radial 
tyres correctly for soft soil, and that is 
possible. An accent has been put on tracks, or 
on steel wheels. What are they doing? Quite 
the same aspects as bias tyres. Bias tyres are 
not as deformable as radial tyres, and they 
are better on soft soil. Conclusion: tracks are 
better on soft soil. Radial tyres should be 
adjusted to take that into account. I believe, 
Mr. Chamen, that you enter into a new area. 

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