Comparative Analysis of Some Commonly Used Impact Sprinklers Performances in the Different Wind Conditions and Sprinkler Arrangements

Abstract

In this study the performances of some commonly used types of impact sprinklers were investigated in different wind speeds, sprinkler arrangements and spacing. Field experiments were conducted in different wind conditions for three types of sprinklers including IRRILINE 30, VYR 35 and RAINBIRD 40B and water distribution patterns of them were obtained. The distribution pattern of each single sprinkler was overlapped by setting of them in rectangular and triangular arrangements with spacing of 12×15, 12×18 and 15×18 m and also in square arrangement with spacing of 12×12, 15×15 and 18×18 m. Then the overall water application uniformity coefficients of each setting were calculated and compared with each other. In addition, in order to evaluate the two other impact sprinklers of RC 130H and VYR 70, AdorSprinkler simulating software was used and the performances of mentioned sprinklers were investigated at the same condition of experimental sprinklers. The results showed that the square arrangement of the field tested sprinklers with average uniformity coefficient of 74.45% had the maximum uniformity level and IRRILINE 30 showed the best performance among these sprinklers. According to simulating results of Ador-Sprinkler, the square arrangement for RC 130H and rectangular arrangement for VYR 70 could gain the maximum uniformity coefficients of 79.75% and 82.73%, respectively and the VYR 70 showed better performance in comparison with the other type of sprinkler. Generally the operations of VYR 35 and VYR 70 sprinklers were less affected by wind speed increment. According to the resulted relationships between the uniformity coefficient and wind speed, it can be stated that RC 130H was more sensitive to wind speed variation than VYR 70

Keywords

• Coefficient of Uniformity, Impact Sprinkler, Performance, Sprinklers Spacing and Arrangement, Wind Speed