The paper presents an evaluation of the efficiency of the use of road trains for transporting fuel chips during operation in real natural and industrial conditions through the variability of the coefficient of adhesion weight (kst). The authors of the paper note that the transport and transposing aspect of the technological process is especially important in the formation of efficient technological chains for the production of biofuels and, in particular, wood chips for energy purposes. The analysis showed that it is rational to use wood chip trucks based on all-wheel drive vehicles (6x6) to ensure movement in all modes when operating in complicated and challenging conditions on road surfacing in an unsatisfactory condition. Vehicles for transporting wood chips for energy purposes, manufactured in Russia and Belarus, are at the level of foreign analogues in terms of the main technical and economic indicators, and in some cases surpass them.

Keywords: forest bioenergy, transportation of fuel chips, wood chip trucks, cohesive weight coefficient, cross-country ability

The developed calculation dependencies for determining the log truck movement indicators during non-steady and steady motion in different modes make it possible to solve technical-economic tasks with adequate accuracy and certainty during planning and optimization of wood transportation. During two-stage timber hauling a log truck based on MAZ-6312B9 has advantages in exploitation and technical-economic indicators in comparison with a log truck based on Scania R-420. There are opportunities for a rapid increase of passing ability of a log truck while using an active trailer. This provides the work of a complete log truck on a forest road, and also there is a possibility to eliminate two-stage timber hauling, with rise of efficiency and technical-economic indicators

Keywords: wood transport, optimization, log trucks, motion simulation, efficiency

One of the problems with exploitation of log trucks is damage to equipment during the process of transportation of wood material and during loading-unloading operations. The authors of the paper suggest equipping a log truck with an innovative protective butting device in order to increase reliability and work efficiency of the hydraulic manipulator. This device will allow aligning the sawn wood ends of wood products, and thus it will allow excluding a chance of protruding of sawn wood ends at an inadmissible scale which prevents forming a neighboring pack of wood products. The device will also allow excluding mechanical damages of a hydraulic manipulator by sawn wood ends of wood products being laid on a load platform. This will increase its reliability and will reduce the expenses on repair works.

Keywords: log truck, hydraulic manipulator, modernization, reliability, safety

The paper presents a technical-economic analysis of the perspective of development of domestic forestry machine-building in the conditions of import substitution. The authors substantiate and prove the prospects of using domestically produced harvesting machines in logging works, particularly the machines based on caterpillar tractors OTZ-300 and OTZ-400, fitted with modern foreign (in prospect - domestic) technological equipment. Using logging machines made by “Amkodor” company during cutting operations is also economically justifiable. In particular, in difficult natural-manufacturing conditions (the third category of soil) vehicle operating costs on a work cycle of machine complexes by the company “Ponsse” make 1081,7 rouble/m³, of machines by the company “Amkodor” – 848,4 rouble/m³, and of machines based on caterpillar tractors by LLC “OTZ” the costs make 407,7 rouble/m³ on the average. Specific capital costs are 2862, 1215,2 and 560,5 rouble/m³, respectively. Hence, we can draw a conclusion that machines and machine complexes based on caterpillar tractors of cross-country capacity provide stable productive work with high technical-and-economic indexes in difficult natural conditions.

Keywords: import substitution, logging machines, technical-economic analysis, perspectives

The paper describes and analyzes the main development trends of Russian forestry machine-building in modern conditions. Russian forestry machine-building enterprises do not use presently available perspectives in import substitution in connection with the depreciation of the rouble. Neither do they use the opportunities for producing integrated multifunctional machines. Development and production release of forestry machines for assortment harvesting based on Russian-manufactured tractors fitted with technological equipment of foreign manufacture is the first step on the way of creating domestic vehicles of analogous purpose. These machines will be fully complete with home-produced technological equipment. This will allow reducing the costs on the production of these machines and on their timber-harvesting operations

Keywords: forest harvesting technology, felling, limbing, cutting into lengths, skidding, forestry machine-building, development

The paper presents description and analysis of the upgraded felling-skidding machine (FSM). It offers a range of technical solutions for efficiency improvement and FSM using expansion, including fuel chips production and log spurs construction with the wood waste. The creation of FSM with advanced features provides the partial import substitution of machines for CTL logging.

Keywords: felling-skidding machine, modernization, efficiency improvement, logging operations, fuel chips, log spurs

One of the main tasks when organizing workflows of logging transport is the choice of log truck optimal type for logging under specific operation conditions. The method proved by the authors and engineered modelling program of log trucks traffic parameters give an opportunity to accomplish engineering tasks of the choice of logging transport type to operate under various natural-industrial conditions for certain. The example of the log truck optimal type choice is given.

Keywords: logging transport, grade computations, traffic parameters, performance, import substitution