Abstract
The leading causes of emitters’ clogging are known, although the processes involved are seldom studied. The present research is based on the hypothesis that the susceptibility of drippers to clogging is influenced by the emitter discharge, the type of clay, and the concentration of clay in the irrigation water. The objective of this study was to analyse the susceptibility of drippers to clogging caused by water containing suspended clay particles. The susceptibility of the drippers to the clogging was analysed with respect to the following factors: the concentration of suspended clay in water, the discharge of emitters of same labyrinth geometry, and the type of clay particles in suspension. We used four concentrations of kaolinite and montmorillonite (500, 750, 1,000, and 2,000 mg L−1) and two drip line models with similar labyrinth geometries, one model having a lower flow rate (0.6 L h−1) than the other (1.7 L h−1). The concentration of suspended clay particles affected the flow rate of the drippers, particularly at concentrations above 1000 mg L−1. The drip line model with the lower flow rate was more susceptible to variations in the flow rate than the higher-flow rate model. The type of clay had no significant effect on the dripper clogging.
Highlights
Clogging of emitters has been identified as the main limitation of microirrigation systems
At the concentration C1, there was a progressive decrease in the relative flow rate, with a reduction of 2% after 40 h of testing
The C2 concentration results a flow rate reduction of 7% after 24 h of testing, and subsequently there was a small increase in the flow rate (1%), which was maintained until the end of the 40-h testing period
Summary
Clogging of emitters has been identified as the main limitation of microirrigation systems. The uniformity of distribution is an important parameter for the performance of irrigation systems, as it expresses the variations in volume of water applied at different points on a given surface. Clogging can be caused by different factors (physical, chemical, or biological) [5]. Clogging caused by physical processes has been identified as the most common type and is due to particles in suspension. These particles are part of the soil and can be classified according to their mean diameter, as follows: sand (2 to 0.05 mm), silt (0.05 to 0.002 mm), and clay (less than 0.002 mm) [5,6]
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