1 Effect of Side-Wings on Draught: The Case of Ethiopian Ard Plough (Maresha) 2 3 Solomon Gebregziabher1, 2, *, Karel De Swert1, 7, Wouter Saeys1, Herman Ramon1, Bart De 4 Ketelaere1, Abdul M. Mouazen3, Petros Gebray2, Kindeya Gebrehiwot4, Hans Bauer5, Jozef 5 Deckers6, Josse De Baerdemaeker1 6 7 1Division Mechatronics, Biostatistics and Sensors, University of Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 8 30, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium 9 2School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Mekelle University, P.O.Box 231, Mekelle, 10 Ethiopia 11 3Cranfield Soil and AgriFood Institute, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, United 12 Kingdom 13 4Department of Land Resource Management and Environmental Protection, Mekelle University, 14 P.O.Box 231, Mekelle, Ethiopia 15 5The Recanati-Kaplan Centre, WildCRU, University of Oxford, UK; Current address: PO Box 16 80522, Addis Abeba, Ethiopia 17 6Division Soil and Water Management, University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E-2411, BE- 18 3001 Leuven, Belgium 19 7IPS Belgium s.a.42, Avenue Robert Schuman 1400 Nivelles, Belgium 20 21 *Corresponding Author. Tel.: +32 16 3 21437/45, +251 913 926679; Fax: +32 16 328590 22 E-mail:
[email protected] 23 24 25 Abstract 1 26 27 Ethiopian farmers have been using an ox-drawn breaking plough, known as ard plough – 28 maresha, for thousands of years. Maresha is a pointed, steel-tipped tine attached to a draught 29 pole at an adjustable shallow angle. It has narrow side-wings, attached to the left and right side 30 of it, to push soil to either side without inverting. 31 The aim of this paper is to explore the effect of side-wings on draught using a field soil bin test 32 facility.