Improving The Performance of Center-Pivot Irrigation System

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to elucidate the performance of moved center pivot sprinklers irrigation systems under different conditions, and examine the hydraulic uniformity coefficient according to (Heermann and Hein 2007) under different system layouts. The uniformity of water application under a field center pivot (used as experimental system) is determined by setting out 102 catch containers along a line extending radially from the point 312m away from the center of the pivot. To support the result that measured form the filed, software program named (EPANET2) was used as a computerized approach to confirm the field result through the comparing between the field and the software program outputs. The filed results indicated that the overall average seasonal value of the uniformity coefficient for the field center-pivot was 73% which indicates a good uniformity coefficient. The comparison between the field results with the EPANET2 software outputs indicates a good agreements (Not exceed 5% average error). Therefore, the software used as a tool to predict the behavior of the sprinkler system under different layouts was adopted. Changing the water supply from one edge of the system to the middle point of the main pipe leads to increase the average uniformity coefficient 4.8% as compared with the traditional system, while the average percentage of improving uniformity coefficient when change the movement system from the circular motion to the rotational motion is about 5.3 %.