Abstract:Sandfish (Scincus scincus) has remarkable ability of moving forward swiftly below ground in a swimming-like manner. The special geometrical feature of its head plays an important role in its excellent low soil resistance behavior. To reduce soil breaking resistance and energy consumption of conventional subsoiler, sandfish was studied and its head was chosen as the bionic prototype. Firstly, the reverse engineering approach was adopted to extract the special geometrical feature curves of sandfish head. Then the feature curves were applied for the bionic design of the subsoiler tine. Depending on the quantity of feature curves and complexity of the geometrical models, three types of bionic subsoiler tines (B-S-1, B-S-2, B-S-3) were designed and compared with the traditional tine (T-S). Afterwards, the discrete element model (DEM) was used to investigate and compare the forward resistance of subsoiler tines. To validate the DEM simulation results, experimental samples were prepared for vertical soil penetration test. The results derived from discrete element simulation were compared with the real experimental investigation. The results showed that the simulation result agreed well with the real tests, and the relative errors were 2.47%~3.91%. Therefore, the discrete element method could accurately predict the soil resistance on subsoiler tines. On the basis of the validated DEM model, simulations were further conducted to investigate the interaction between soil and subsoiler tines (B-S-1, B-S-2, B-S-3,T-S). It was found that all of the bionic subsoiler tines had lower forward resistance and vertical force compared with traditional one. At the operational speed of 0.8m/s and under the condition that the tillage depth was 300mm. As compared with T-S, the drag resistance of B-S-1, B-S-2 and B-S-3 was decreased, respectively. Meanwhile, the vertical resistance was decreased, respectively. The B-S-2 had the lowest forward and vertical resistance. As compared with T-S, forward resistance was reduced by 8.34%~19.31%. Therefore, it had optimum resistance reduction performance. The simulation results revealed that the special curvature changes of the sandfish head had an important effect on the resistance. With the bionic subsoiler tines, the flow pattern of soil particles was optimized. In consequence, soil disturbance area was decreased and soil resistance was reduced. Compared with the results of soil bin experiments and simulations, the relative errors were 10.83%~17.06%.