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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Wooster, Ohio » Application Technology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #93238
Title: EXPERIMENTAL AND SIMULATION STUDY OF HYDRAULIC AGITATION IN AGROCHEMICAL SPRAYER TANKS

Author
item UCAR, T - OSU/OARDC
item OZKAN, H - OSU/OARDC
item Fox, Robert
item Brazee, Ross
item Derksen, Richard

Submitted to: American Society of Agricultural Engineers Meetings Papers
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/12/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Effectiveness of hydraulic jet agitation systems of agrochemical sprayers was investigated by measuring the concentration of a kaolin clay/water mixture in the line to the boom. Fluent, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, was also used to investigate flow patterns in sprayer tanks with hydraulic jet agitators. Experiments were conducted on several sprayer tanks of different capacities and agitator types. An agitation effectiveness index (AGEF) was defined to help evaluate the effectiveness of hydraulic agitation systems in agricultural sprayer tanks regardless of tank size and shape. The ratio of AGEF to required hydraulic power of the agitation system, called power ratio, was also used as another parameter to evaluate sprayer tank agitation systems. AGEF and the power ratio provided a novel approach to identify efficient agitation systems with low energy requirements. Statistical analysis of experimental data showed that system pressure was the most important factor affecting agitation effectiveness through its direct influence on jet velocity. If the jet velocity was kept constant, then the volume of fluid delivered into the tank was the most important factor in enhancing mixture uniformity. Single-phase solutions to computer model also agreed with this result. However, solving three dimensional, turbulent, multiphase flows (granular model) was not feasible using personal computers because computations times would be several months.