World's first: BERGMANN Beet Overloading Wagon RRW 500

New standards in beet harvesting

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Under optimum harvesting conditions and a good yield the most modern beet harvester achieves more than 150 tonnes per hour. However, on long runs, even the large harvester capacity of up to 43 m³ is not sufficient to harvest continuously to the nearest pile. The harvesters are then misused as expensive transport vehicles to transport their load to the pile. At the same time valuable harvesting time is lost in this very competitive business.

BERGMANN took on this deficit and is presenting a vehicle in Hannover for the first time that is capable of taking the above mentioned harvest volumes, transporting them very quickly and unloading them exactly on the piles.

The three-axle Beet Overloading Wagon RRW 500 is equipped with this superior technology. The 50 m³ (DIN) bunker and the 180 cm wide transfer belt are driven by a high-pressure hydraulic system. This hydraulic system in the vehicle generates pressures of up to 400 bar and is powered by the tractor PTO. This guarantees system operation which is independent of the tractor's hydraulic power. The top transfer performance of more than 2,100 t/h (!) keeps the demand on the tractor relatively low. Only sufficient pulling capacity is important, so that transport times on the field can be kept short.

The vehicle bunker is made of completely welded, continuously bended side walls and wear-resistant floor panels. Solid side uprights give the structure additional stability. The upper part of the structure is raised on the right side with a sloping wall extension. This enables optimum filling by the parallel running harvester, since the flatter the discharge conveyor can be operated, the greater the transfer performance and the shorter the transfer time. A view into the cargo space is essential for optimally loading the vehicle while driving. For this reason the majority of the front wall is a mesh, which provides perfect visibility into the illuminated cargo space, even when it is dark. The RRW 500's solid structure is optimally equipped for joint operations during the challenging harvesting campaign.

Particular emphasis was placed on low-loss, gentle beet unloading. So the cargo space is unloaded from back to front with four chain strands. These are connected in pairs with specially shaped pusher bars that prevent damage to the beets. The same principle is used for the transverse movement of the beets in the front section of the cargo space to move them to the transfer belt on the left-side. A special cleaning roller equipped with eight-edged rubber discs removes a large portion of the soil that is stuck to the beet.

The beets are cleaned again on the wide transfer belt, which transports the beets gently with grating bars and rubberised pusher fingers. Earth and foreign bodies from the beets fall through the transfer belt onto the ground and are not transported to the pile.

The belt can be folded hydraulically 3 times for making perfect piles. 10 m wide piles can be made without having to drive across the ground under the pile. Deep ruts, the so-called. "Tracks", are a thing of the past, and the transfer can be made without loss.

In order to keep bunker discharge times as low as possible, BERGMANN paid special attention to a rapid unloading. Short unloading times of only 50 s for a full load of 50 m³ (~ 35 t) ensures the shortest lap times, so that the important harvesting does not need to be interrupted.

While driving on the field, the transfer belt is moved into the vertical, extended position, whereas it disappears in the front part of the bunker for road travel. Therefore the transport width of 3 m is not exceeded.

The soil in the beet growing fields is less capable of bearing loads, especially in the wet autumn and winter months. This is why modern beet harvesters are equipped with large-volume wheels or track drives. In addition, offset track driving, so-called "crabbing" is possible in many cases, which makes it possible to run over a large area to minimize soil compaction.

The RRW 500 also meets this requirement through large-volume wheels, but especially through the optional crab steering. In this case all three axles are steered electrohydraulically and can be controlled manually via the terminal, so that the vehicle runs offset to the left or right. A wide surface of soil is rolled over which means there are no ruts.

On the road, however, the middle axle is fixed, whereas the first and third axles react to forced steering pulses and thus contribute to a comfortable ride.

Similarly, the well-known BERGMANN hydraulic vehicle chassis promotes safe driving behaviour on the road. On the field, however, it boasts high axle compensations of 300 mm per axle, so that uneven ground or plow furrows are optimally buffered.

Various optional extras such as LED lighting units or colour cameras provide for individual adaptation of the RRW 500 to customer requirements, thus ensuring comfortable, safe vehicle operation.