Abstract
Design strategies that enhance modern irrigation practices, reduce energy consumption, and improve water use efficiency and crop yields are fundamental for sustainability. Although microirrigation is currently a widely applied method, center-pivot irrigation systems have become very popular on large farms, thanks to their automation, wide-coverage, and reliability. Different design procedures have been proposed, even though some aspects have not been solved yet. This paper presents a simple design procedure for center-pivot systems using a gradually decreasing sprinkler spacing along with a pivot lateral, which makes it possible to set favorable and uniformly distributed water application rates. The sprinkler spacing distribution along the radial direction is derived by considering just one dimensionless group accounting for the geometric and hydraulic input parameters. According to this outcome, the results showed that the suggested procedure made it possible to select the sprinkler characteristics and the pipe diameter based on the desired input parameters, i.e., the uniform water application rate and the lateral length. For assigned input parameters, the lateral length is delimited by a threshold value, indicating that lateral lengths longer than that threshold value require the modifications of a sprinkler flow rate or pipe diameter. Finally, applications based on the proposed hydraulic design procedure were performed and discussed for two different cases.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
The contribution to the manuscript has to be shared between authors as follows: investigation, theory, and applications of the proposed procedure were carried out by the first author, who also wrote the original draft. All the authors analyzed the results and reviewed the text. The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for the helpful comments and suggestions provided during the revision stage.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 7 • July 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 17, 2020
Accepted: Jan 20, 2021
Published online: May 4, 2021
Published in print: Jul 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Oct 4, 2021
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Design (by type)
- Energy efficiency
- Energy engineering
- Energy sources (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Hydraulic design
- Hydro power
- Infrastructure
- Irrigation
- Irrigation engineering
- Irrigation systems
- Mathematics
- Methodology (by type)
- Parameters (statistics)
- Pipe sizes
- Pipeline systems
- Pipes
- Renewable energy
- Spacing
- Statistics
- Water and water resources
Authors
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- Hadji Mohammed Salah, Ayoub Guerrah, Abdelmalek Atia, Optimal Sprinkler Spacing for a Mini Center Pivot System, Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, 10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0001715, 148, 11, (2022).
- Xin Hui, Yudong Zheng, Rizwan Shoukat Muhammad, Haibin Tan, Haijun Yan, Non-negligible factors in low-pressure sprinkler irrigation: droplet impact angle and shear stress, Journal of Arid Land, 10.1007/s40333-022-0029-5, 14, 11, (1293-1316), (2022).