ARS | Publication request: Current developments in software for surface irrigation analysis:winSRFR4/SRFR5

Submitted to: Proceedings of the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: January 17, 2012
Publication Date: May 20, 2012
Citation: Bautista, E., Strelkoff, T., Schlegel, J.L. 2012. Current developments in software for surface irrigation analysis:WinSRFR4/SRFR5. Proceedings of the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress Conference. p. 2128-2137.

Interpretive Summary: WinSRFR is a software package for the hydraulic analysis of surface irrigation systems. It is both a research and practical tool. NRCS personnel use this tool to evaluate proposals for improving surface irrigation systems. A central element of this software is its simulation engine, SRFR. SRFR predicts the unsteady flow of water for a given irrigation system configuration, soil characteristics, and inflow rate. The mathematical relationships used to represent irrigation systems are complex and solutions are computationally intensive. The SRFR code, which is tens of thousands of lines long, is rooted in code that was first developed more than 30 years ago, and is now obsolete, from the standpoint of software architecture. This makes the code difficult to maintain and modify. The SRFR engine was reprogrammed as part of the WinSRFR development process. The objective was to provide a modern architecture, facilitate future development, and allow the program to interface with client applications to be developed in the future. This article discusses the new architecture of the SRFR software and some of its benefits. This article should be of interest to researchers interested in the development of software for modeling unsteady flow systems, in particular unsteady flows in open channels.

Technical Abstract: WinSRFR is a software package for the hydraulic analysis of surface irrigation systems. The software can be used to conduct simulations, carry out design and operational analyses, and evaluate performance from field-measured data. Version 3.1 was released in 2009 and a new version, V. 4.1 is scheduled for 2012. This release provides a limited number of analytical enhancements for the end user, but it represents a major software upgrade. The simulation engine, known as SRFR, has been entirely rewritten using modern object-oriented programming concepts. This recoding effort was undertaken to facilitate the continued development of the SRFR code and to provide the application with a well-defined application programming interface. This paper discusses the architecture of the new SRFR engine and the resulting enhancements to the WinSRFR program.