Study On The Wicking Effect Of Textile Based On The Principle Of Plant Nutrient Transportation For The Application Of Irrigation

China,as a large agricultural country,the water resources are relatively deficient and unevenly distributed.Meanwhile,the traditional extensive irrigation is very unreasonable,leading to a lot of waste of water resources.Therefore,it is significant to develop new technologies of water-saving irrigation.Textiles possess excellent characteristics to store and release water,owing to the existence of rich capillary channels,thus showing great potential in the agricultural and forestry irrigation.However,the existing irrigated fabrics have some defects,such as a short irrigation period,inability to overcome the effects of soil and crop gravity and compression sinking.Besides,it can not realize the regulation and control of crop irrigation on demands.Therefore,it is urgent to explore a new technology of water saving irrigation,with a lower cost and the ability of water quantity regulation..Based on the principle of plant nutrient transmission,the plant xylem like vessel structure inside the fiber bundle has good wicking performance.At the same time,the fiber bundle prepared by using degradable fiber in the new irrigation system,not only meets the requirements of environmental protection and sustainable development,but also can be well applied to agricultural and forestry irrigation.However,at present,there are few researches on the application of fiber bundles in agricultural and forestry irrigation at home and abroad.Therefore,it is necessary to systematically study of the factors affecting the wicking effect of fiber bundles,and to explore its application on water-saving irrigation to fill the gap in this field.This topic is based on the principle of plant nutrient transmission,using the fiber bundles and wicking irrigation models based on fiber bundles under restraint conditions as research objects,to explore the influence of fiber surface properties,fiber types,fiber structure parameters,and fiber aggregation states on the wicking and irrigation performance.To achieve it,the experimental scheme,samples and evaluation methods were designed,prepared or determined as follows:(1)Various fiber assemblies were prepared,according to the optimal drawing process parameters obtained from orthogonal experiments.Fiber bundles with different bundle densities were obtained by restraining them using hollow tubes or extrusion devices.The wicking height and wicking liquid weight of all fiber bundles were measured,and the results are as follows:a)The wicking properties of cotton,ramie,and polyester fibers before and after surface treatment were compared.The results show that the hydrophilic property of single fibers have a significant effect on the wicking properties of fiber bundles.The better the hydrophilic property of the single fiber,the better the wicking performance of the fiber bundle.b)At the same bundle density,the longer the single fiber length,the better the continuity and patency of the capillary channels formed inside the fiber bundle,which helps to improve the wicking effect of the fiber bundle.c)The influence of fiber fineness on the wicking performance was also investigated.The results reveal that at the same bundle density,a single fiber with a smaller linear density can be endowed with a better the wicking performance.d)The influence of cross section shape of fibers on the wicking properties were investigated by comparing five polyester fiber bundles with different cross section shapes,namely,triangular,trilobal,hollow,circular and cross shape.The results turned out that the cross section shapes of the fiber also affect the wicking performance of the fiber bundle.At the same bundle density,the wicking performance of the special-shaped fiber bundles were better than that of common round fibers.The cross-shaped polyester fiber bundle showed the best wicking performance,and the wicking height reached up to 31.3 cm.e)By measuring and comparing the wicking performance of fiber bundles made from multiple fibers at different bundle densities,it was found that the wicking performance of fiber bundles improved at first and then degraded with the increase of bundle density.Specifically the wicking height increased when the bundle density was smaller than 0.4246 g/cm~3,while as the bundle density continued to increase,the wicking height gradually decreased.f)The influence of fiber unbend parallelism on the wicking performance was also studied by examining several fiber bundles made from various types of fiber rovings and slivers.The results show that the fiber unbend parallelism in fiber bundles has a significant effect on the wicking performance.(2)Based on the above research results,a fiber bundle with the best wicking performance was selected as the main water-transporting medium.Three wicking irrigation models were proposed,including vertical wicking irrigation model,horizontal wicking irrigation model and combined wicking irrigation model.The most suitable structural materials were selected for the preparation of three wicking irrigation models.The irrigation performance of these three types of wicking irrigation models were investigated,and the result are listed below:a)Vertical wicking irrigation models were used to design the experiments of mung bean growth.Mung beans at different irrigation heights successfully germinated and grew well,which proves that the vertical wicking irrigation model can perform well on crop irrigation.The soil moisture content of the mung beans within one week's growth was measured in real time using a soil moisture content analyzer.It was concluded that the vertical wicking irrigation model has good irrigation performance with self-adaptability.b)For the horizontal wicking irrigation models,the wicking performance,horizontal water delivery distance,and horizontal water delivery volume of the main fiber bundles were measured.The results show that the horizontal wicking irrigation model has a good application prospect.A mung bean planting experiment with horizontal wicking irrigation was designed,and the effects of fiber bundle thickness,fiber bundle distribution interval,and with or without fabric assistance on soil moisture content and mung bean growth were explored.The results further illustrate the horizontal wicking irrigation model is suitable for agricultural and forestry irrigation.c)In view of the defects of the existing ordinary three-layered fabric irrigation models,combined wicking irrigation models with different thicknesses were prepared by adding wicking assemblies made of fiber bundles and PU foam.The water storage performance,water supply performance,water supply efficiency,and irrigation cycle of the wicking irrigation models were studied.It showed the combined wicking irrigation model had good irrigation performance.Furthermore,further experiments on the growth of mung beans proved that the use of the combined wicking irrigation model is beneficial to the growth of crops.