Agricultural Engineering
<Paper-I
Section A
1. Soil and Water Conservation :
Scope of soil and water conservation. Mechanics and types of erosion, their
causes. Rainfall, runoff and sedimentation relationships and their measurement.
Soil erosion control
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measures - biological and engineering including stream bank
protection-vegetative barriers, contour bunds, contour trenches, contour stone
walls, contour ditches, terraces, outlets and grassed waterwyas. Gully control
structures - temporary and permanent - design of permanent soil conservation
structures such as chute, drop and drop inlet spillways. Design of farm ponds
and percolation ponds. Principles of flood control-flood routing. Watershed
Management - investigation, planning and implementation - selection of priority
areas and water shed work plan, water harvesting and moisture conservation. Land
development - levelling, estimation of earth volumes and costing. Wind Erosion
process - design fo shelter belts and wind brakes and their management. Forest
(Conservation) Act,
2. Aerial Photography and Remote
Sensing : Basic characteristics of photographic images, interpretation keys,
equipment for interpretation, imagery interpretation for land use, geology, soil
and forestry.
Remote sensing - merits and demerits of
conventional and remote sensing approaches. Types of satellite images,
fundamentals of satellite image interpretation, teachniques of visual and
digital interpretations for soil, water and land use management. Use of GIS in
planning and development of watersheds, forests including forest cover, water
resources etc.
Section B
3. Irrigation and Drainage :
Sources of water for irrigation. Planning and design of minor irrigation
projects. Techniques of measuring soil moisture - laboratory and in situ,
Soil-water plant relationships. Water requirement of crops. Planning conjunctive
use of surface and ground weater. Measurement of irrigation water, measuring
devices - orifices, weirs and flumes. Methods of irrigation - surface, sprinkler
and drip, fertigation. Irrigation efficiencies and their estimation. Design and
construction of canals, field channels, underground pipelines, head-gates,
diversion boxes and structures for road crossing.
Occurrence of ground water, hydraulics of
wells, types of wells (tube wells and open wells) and their construction. Well
development and testing. Pumps-types, selection and installation. Rehabilitation
of sick and failed wells.
Drainage causes of waterlogging and salt
problem. Methods of drainage� drainage of irrigated and unirrigated lands,
design of surface, sub-surface and vertical drainage systems. Improvement and
utilization of poor quality water. Reclamation of saline and alkali soils.
Economics of irrigation and drainage systems. Use of waste water for irrigation
� standards of waste water for sustained irrigation, feasibility and economics.
4. Agricultural Structures : Site
selection, design and construction of farmstead - farm house, cattle shed, dairy
bam, poultry shed, hog housing, machinery and implement shed, storage structures
for food grains, feed and forage. Design and consturction of fences and farm
roads. Structures for plant environment - green houses, poly houses and shade
houses. Common building materials used in construction - timber, brick, stone,
tiles, concrete etc and their properties. Water supply, drainage and sanitation
system.
Paper-II
Section A
1. Farm Power and Machinery :
Agricultural mechanization and its scope. Sources of farm power - animate and
electro-mechanical. Thermodynamics, construction and working of internal
combustion engines. Fuel, ignition, lubrication, cooling and governing system of
IC engines. Different types of tractors and power tillers. Power tramsmission,
ground drive, power take off (p.t.o.) and control systems. Operation and
maintenance of farm machinery for primary and secondary tillage. Traction
theory. Sowing transplanting and interculture implements and tools. Plant
protection equipment - spraying and dusting. Harvesting, threshing and combining
equipment. Machinery for earth moving and land development - methods and cost
estimation. Ergonomics of man-machine system. Machinery for horticulture and
agro-forestry, feeds and forages. Haulage of agricultural and forest produce.
2. Agro-energy : Energy
requirements of agricultural operations and agro-processing. Selection,
installation, safety and maintenance of electric motors for agricultural
applications. Solar (thermal and photovoltoic), wind and bio-gas energy and
their utilization in agriculture. Gasification of biomass for running IC engines
and for electric power generation. Energy efficient cooking stoves and alternate
cooking fuels. Distribution of electricity for agricultural and agro-industrial
applications.
Section B
3. Agricultural Process Engineering
: Post harvest technology of crops and its scope. Engineering properties of
agricultural produces and by-products. Unit operations - clearning grading, size
reduction, densification, concentration, drying/dehydration, evaporation,
filtration, freezing and packaging of agricultural produces and by-products.
Material handling equipment - belt and screw conveyors, bucket elevators, their
capacity and power requirement.
Processing of milk and dairy products -
homogenization, cream separation, pasteurization, sterilization, spray and
roller drying, butter making, ice cream, cheese and shrikhand manufacture. Waste
and by-product utilization - rice husk, rice bran, sugarcane bagasse, plant
residues and coir pith.
4. Instrumentation and computer
applications in Agricultural Engineering : Electronic devices and their
characteristics - rectifiers, amplifiers, oscillators, multivibrators. Digital
circuits � sequential and combinational system. Application of microprocessors
in data acquisition and control of agricultural engineering processes-
measurement systems for level, flow, strain, force, torque, power, pressure,
vaccum and temperature. Computers � introduction, input/output devices, central
processing unit, memory devices, operating systems, processors, keyboards and
printers. Algorithms, flowchart specification, programme translation and problem
analysis in Agricultural Engineering. Multimedia and Audio-Visual aids.
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