Justin D. Maughan
- Courses4
- Reviews4
- School: Brigham Young University
- Campus: Idaho
- Department: Ag Bus Plant Animal Sci
- Email address: Join to see
- Phone: Join to see
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Location:
525 S Center St
Rexburg, ID - 83460 - Dates at Brigham Young University: December 2016 - April 2017
- Office Hours: Join to see
Biography
Brigham Young University Idaho - Ag Bus Plant Animal Sci
Agriculture Technology Faculty at Brigham Young University - Idaho
Justin
Maughan
Pocatello, Idaho Area
I am an innovative and hard-working individual who approaches each new task with a go-to attitude. I am not afraid to try new things and always put forth my best effort. I am able to evaluate a situation and develop a solution for improvement or repair by understanding how the process is performed.
As a faculty member at Brigham Young University-Idaho, I am also finishing my PhD research and dissertation at Iowa State University in Industrial and Agricultural Technology, focusing on machinery management and the use of precision technology. My current interests include agricultural machinery, precision agriculture, and farm management, diesel engine technology, fluid power technology, and small engines and outdoor power products. Specifically I am interested in how and understanding and management of agricultural machinery and technology can lead to increased productivity and better farm management decisions.
I teach most of the courses in the Agriculture Technology area, and am the program lead for the Agricultural Science and Technology program. I am the faculty adviser for all the students in this program, as well as the Agricultural Engineering Technology program here at BYU-I. I fully enjoy working with the students and helping to shape their lives to be leaders in their chosen field as they obtain the skills, knowledge, and experiences necessary to help them become decision makers, problem solvers, and managers of people, resources and operations. Perhaps most important and rewarding is helping them become proud, confident, and able individuals and great contributors to society and providers for their families.
I am actively involved in my community, and serve as a lay leader in my local church. I work closely with other volunteer adult and youth leaders and also with youth in helping young men and women develop qualities, characteristics, and habits that will help shape them into future leaders of our community.
Experience
Education
Iowa State University
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Industrial and Agricultural Technology
My research focus area is farm machinery management. I will collect and analyze data regarding the way that farmers and farm machinery operators utilize technology such as global positioning systems (GPS), other precision farming technology, and CAN (controller area network) bus technology to increase productivity. I hope to demonstrate that this technology has helped improve productivity. This information would then be made available for use as a decision making tool when purchasing or upgrading equipment.Iowa State University
Graduate Research Assistant
I was involved in a multi-year research project that was co-sponsored by John Deere and Monsanto. It was a corn stover (all plant material other than grain) residue study, that compared the effects of different tillage treatments and timing combined with different stover removal rates at a field scale. My interests also included studying how advances in machine design and other technologies have impacted the way that farm equipment are used. This is important due to the ever changing technology landscape and increasingly restrictive government regulation as well as the need for farmers and other agricultural producers to be as efficient and productive with all the equipment used in their operation. I also taught a course titled Agricultural Machinery and Power Management. Students in this course learned about all the different operations involved with the production of crops and the machinery used in those operations. They also learned how to manage the machinery and operations to improve field efficiency and maximize productivity for each machine and operation, and how to determine the costs associated with owning and operating machinery as a basis for planning, management, and decision making.University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.S.
Technical Systems Management
In 2012, I attended the ASABE International Meeting, held in Dallas, Texas. While there, I presented two papers that I had prepared for the conference. They were titled "Yield Monitoring and Mapping Systems for Hay and Forage Harvesting - A Review," and "Impact of Cutting Speed, Blade Type, and Blade Angle on Miscanthus Harvesting Energy Requirement." They can be found in the ASABE online technical library. Ben and Georgeann Jones Graduate Student Scholarship winner, 2013Brigham Young University - Idaho
B.S.
Agricultural Systems
As a three-year member of PAS, I participated in the 2008 National convention held in Dallas, Texas. While there I participated in the Ag Mech competition, where my team mate and I performed troubleshooting and repair on many pieces of equipment, as well as parts identification and a written exam. We placed 5th overall. I also participated in the individual Career Progress competition, where I outlined the progress I was making with my coursework to achieve my career goals. This competition also included an interview with a representative of Kuhn North America. I placed 1st overall.
Publications
Impact of Blade Angle on Miscanthus Harvesting Energy Requirement
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE)
Miscanthus is emerging as a promising feedstock for domestic biofuel production. However, inefficiencies of machinery that are used for harvesting bioenergy crops such as miscanthus currently prohibit commercial production. The performance of a mower-conditioner used to harvest miscanthus was evaluated and modifications to the disk head were made to allow the machine to operate more efficiently. It was also hypothesized that the harvest energy requirement of the mower conditioner in miscanthus could be reduced by increasing the blade oblique angle. Blades with oblique angles of 20° and 30° were manufactured and fitted to the disk mower-conditioner. When combined with data collected from a real-time yield sensing system the data collected regarding the machine performance resulted in point-specific and overall machine energy consumption information. The 30° oblique angle resulted in a 27% reduction in the energy requirement with an energy consumption of 13.5 MJ Mg-1 as compared to 18.5 MJ Mg-1 for the conventional straight 0° blades. Further studies are needed to examine the overall length of life of the angle blades as well as the feasibility of their application to other crops harvested by a disk mower-conditioner, such as hay and forage.
Impact of Blade Angle on Miscanthus Harvesting Energy Requirement
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE)
Miscanthus is emerging as a promising feedstock for domestic biofuel production. However, inefficiencies of machinery that are used for harvesting bioenergy crops such as miscanthus currently prohibit commercial production. The performance of a mower-conditioner used to harvest miscanthus was evaluated and modifications to the disk head were made to allow the machine to operate more efficiently. It was also hypothesized that the harvest energy requirement of the mower conditioner in miscanthus could be reduced by increasing the blade oblique angle. Blades with oblique angles of 20° and 30° were manufactured and fitted to the disk mower-conditioner. When combined with data collected from a real-time yield sensing system the data collected regarding the machine performance resulted in point-specific and overall machine energy consumption information. The 30° oblique angle resulted in a 27% reduction in the energy requirement with an energy consumption of 13.5 MJ Mg-1 as compared to 18.5 MJ Mg-1 for the conventional straight 0° blades. Further studies are needed to examine the overall length of life of the angle blades as well as the feasibility of their application to other crops harvested by a disk mower-conditioner, such as hay and forage.
Impact of Cutting Speed and Blade Configuration on Energy Requirement for Miscanthus Harvesting
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
Previous studies have shown that cutting speed and blade configurations play a critical role in crop harvesting. This study investigated the effect of cutting speed, blade oblique angle, and blade mounting in a field setting. To investigate their effect on Miscanthus harvesting power consumption, a hydraulically-driven single disk cutter head platform was developed. It has the provisions to adjust cutting parameters and was instrumented to measure the bending force on a push bar, torque, and cutting speed of the disk cutter. The cutting energy was determined at three oblique angles (0°, 30°, 40°), two blade mountings (fixed, flexible), and three hydraulic flow settings to drive the developed platform. Three hydraulic flow settings were used that resulted in average recorded cutting speeds of 31.5, 47.3, and 63.0 m s-1. The differences between the blade mountings were found to be negligible. A 40° oblique angle operating at 31.5 m s-1 had the lowest energy consumption, averaging 9.1 MJ ha-1. Similarly, a 30° oblique angle consumed 16.9 MJ ha-1 and a straight blade consumed 23.1 MJ ha-1. The results indicate that the cutting speed and blade oblique angle are directly related to the power requirements and efficiency of Miscanthus harvesting machinery. Information about the bending force of the Miscanthus was also collected and compared to the energy consumption of the machine. The data show that the energy consumption was correlated to the bending force. It is expected that the results of this study would help in modifying existing Miscanthus harvesters.
