Hydraulic Performance Analysis of Drip Irrigation System Using Pressure Compensated Dripper at Low Operating Pressure

Abstract

Irrigation is the most important component in ensuring that crops can produce optimal yields. The use of drip irrigation can help farmers in providing water to crops in the amount required by the crop. Drip irrigation usually uses an uncompensated dripper and also a pressure compensated dripper. The use of an uncompensated dripper requires precise pressure to ensure a uniform flow for each dripper while the use of a pressure compensated dripper will also provide a uniform flow when operating pressure was used within the range specified by the dripper manufacturer. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the hydraulic performance of the drip irrigation system using low pressure compared to the minimum pressure recommended by dripper manufacturers. The pressure operation recommended by the manufacturer is 1.5-4 bars. This study uses pressures as low as 1 bar (low pressure), 2 bars, and 2.5 bars (recommended by manufacture) to operate this irrigation system. The volumetric approach was used to calculate each emitter's flow rate. Coefficient uniformity (CU), emission uniformity (EU), coefficient of variation (CV), and emitter flow variation (EFV) were the hydraulic parameters evaluated. The results show that CU, CV, and EU are in excellent classification, and the value for CU and the EU is more than 95 percent efficiency. The CV value is below 0.03 which is a very good classification. Meanwhile, emitter flow variation is 10% when operating at 2.5 bars and 2.0 bars and is considered the desirable classification. On the other hand, the emitter flow variation was reported at 6% for the 1 bar operating pressure and the classification was also recorded in the desirable classification. The results conclude that the use of low operating pressure compared to the minimum operating pressure proposed by the manufacturer can also operate in excellent condition according to the hydraulic parameters evaluated.