Design Of Fractal Flow Path For Emitters And Experiment Study On Its Hydraulic Performance

Tickle irrigation is one of the most important measures to reduce the water resources shortage challenging and to develop the agricultural condition. However, the development of emitters was restricted for the complicated flow in the path of emitters, which was difficult to be mastered. Fortunately, the creation of Fractal Theory has offered a strong technique to describe nonlinear and to construct phenomenon. In this work, flow paths were designed based on the Fractal Theory to explore its capability to diminish pressure head. The basic flow and pressure parameters in the path were studied to determine the effect of the flow path on the pressure losses. 8 emitters were designed and tested to determine flow rates at five different pressures. Flow path dimensions, and pressures values were used to determine expected flow rates using the modified Darcy equation. Results showed that the equation severely overestimated the flow rates. Head losses are caused by means of sharp bends and turns. A model was developed to find the effect of bends on the pressure losses in fractal path emitters. The model developed successfully predicted head flow rate. The differences between predicted and actual head loss for most emitters were between ?8% and 16%. It was shown that the flow path could be designed on the ratio of height of bend to the depth of path (HID).