Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Licensure Examination (ABELE) Area 1 Practice Test

The field capacity depends on how much area is actually tilled per hour, taking into account the machine’s speed, the effective width of each pass (working width minus overlap), and the time lost in turning between passes. Since we’re tilting along the longer field direction, each pass covers the full 90 m length of the field.

First, the effective width per pass is 1 m minus 10% overlap, which is 0.9 m. To cover the 45 m width, you need 45 / 0.9 = 50 passes.

Each pass travels 90 m at 3 km/h. 3 km/h equals 3000 m/h, so the time for one pass is 90 / 3000 = 0.03 h = 108 seconds.

There are 49 turnarounds between passes, each taking 9 seconds, for a total turnaround time of 49 × 9 = 441 seconds.

Total tilling time = 50 passes × 108 s = 5400 s. Add turnarounds to get total time = 5400 + 441 = 5841 seconds ≈ 1.6236 hours.

Field area = 45 m × 90 m = 4050 m² = 0.405 ha. Actual field capacity = 0.405 ha / 1.6236 h ≈ 0.25 ha/h.

So the actual field capacity is about 0.25 ha per hour.