Improvement of Solid Spreader Blade Design Using Discrete Element Method (DEM) Applications Atakan Soysal 1 , Pınar Demircio ˘ glu 2(B ) , and ˙ Ismail Bö˘ grekçi 2 1 EYS Metal R&D Center, Aydin, Turkey asoysal@e-y-s.com 2 Mechanical Engineering Department, Aydın Adnan Menderes University, Aydin, Turkey {pinar.demircioglu,ibogrekci}@adu.edu.tr Abstract. The time and fuel consumption required to complete the fertilization process is high, as traditional blade designs are better suited for laying the manure behind the machine. When a homogeneous and wide area distribution is provided, both time and fuel are saved. In this study, improvement studies of blade design in order to increase the spreading width of solid manure distribution trailers used in the fertilization of agricultural lands and to obtain a homogeneous distribution in the field are pre- sented. This new design was tested both in the field and in computer environment. By bending the blade drums, fertilizer was thrown and the blade surfaces were increased, increasing the amount of fertilizer thrown per unit time. Collection boxes were used to monitor the distribution in the field. The tractor-driven machine was operated at three different feeding speeds (4 km/h, 5 km/h and 6 km/h) and the amount of fertilizer accumulated in the boxes was observed by passing the boxes on the determined route. Two different fertilizers were used in this experimental study: solid manure (65% moisture) and com- post (50% humidity). The volume weights of these materials were measured as 720 kg/m 3 and 600 kg/m 3 , respectively. After the distribution was completed, the fertilizer collected in each container was weighed and the coefficient of variation was calculated. Keywords: DEM analysis · Distribution pattern · Field application · Solid spreader · Vertical beater 1 Introduction The nutrition and development of plants depends on the presence of enough nutrients in the soil. Soil contains many mineral substances in its structure, but their amounts are not always sufficient. Especially the lands on which plants are grown become poor in terms of nutrients. Plants take these elements into their bodies and use them in the synthesis of organic compounds and biochemical events necessary for growth and metabolism activities [1]. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. M. Durakbasa and M. G. Gen˛ cyılmaz (Eds.): Digitizing Production Systems, LNME, pp. 192–201, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90421-0_16