Abstract
The time and position that fertilizer takes to uniformly mix with water in an irrigation system significantly affects the development of a fertilization strategy. A pipe irrigation system was used to study the fertilizer–water mixing law in irrigation pipes using numerical simulation and experiments. The effect of the diameter of the water pipe and fertilizer pipe, water and fertilizer flow rates, concentration and viscosity of fertilizer, frequency of fertilizer injection on the mixing speed, and uniform mixing length indicated that the frequency of fertilizer injection did not affect the mixing process. The increase in the water pipe diameter and fertilizer flow rate or the decrease in fertilizer pipe and water flow rate diameter result in the increase of the speed of fertilizer solution mixing with water along the radial direction of the mixing pipe. The uniform mixing length was directly proportional to the fertilizer pipe diameter, water pipe diameter, water flow rate, and fertilizer viscosity, while it was inversely proportional to the flow rate and concentration of fertilizer. The relationship between the uniform mixing length and six influencing factors was fitted, the fitting was highly accurate, and the fitting equation can be used to predict the uniform mixing length under other conditions.
Highlights
Fertigation is an efficient fertilization technology that can improve fertilizer efficiency and reduce the amount of fertilizer applied, reducing the amount of pollution caused by excessive fertilization [1,2]
Pipe irrigation is a widely used irrigation system in agricultural fertigation, and the research on fertilizer–water mixing in pipes can be realized under laboratory conditions and can provide a reference for the study of water–fertilizer mixing in other irrigation systems such as canal and drip irrigation
Fertilizer–water mixing in the pipes is essentially liquid–liquid mixing, which is caused by convection and molecular diffusion [3]
Summary
Fertigation is an efficient fertilization technology that can improve fertilizer efficiency and reduce the amount of fertilizer applied, reducing the amount of pollution caused by excessive fertilization [1,2]. Fluid-Structure-Interaction test facility to explore the mixing state of hot and cold water near T-joints when the T-junction had a weld inside the pipe In these experiments, liquid was injected into the pipe at a constant flow rate, but for many sprinkler pipe systems, the fertilizer was pulse injected by a plunger pump or diaphragm pump [9,10]. Zughbi [11] conducted numerical and experimental investigations on the mixing of hot and cold water in the pipe They measured the mixing uniformity by the temperature distribution on the pipe section and delineated that the pipe length required to achieve 95%. Built a two-dimensional pipe model and simulated the flow state in the pipeline and the mixing velocity of solutes in water using Comsol Multiphysics software. The relationship between the uniformity mixing length and each factor was established, and it can be used to predict the uniformity mixing length under other working conditions
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