• Journal of agriculture & life science
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.103-109
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• 2018

The performance of drip irrigation devices depends on flow uniformity related to the function of pressure compensation. The flow uniformity can be secured when the internal fluid pressures at the positions of the flow holes are maintained uniformly. The pressure compensation effect of the drip irrigation devices can be optimized with the combination of soft silicon and labyrinth structures. However, for a drip irrigation devices composed of only hard labyrinth structures, the flow rate is changed largely with the length and the internal geometry of the labyrinth structure. Although a drip irrigation devices with only hard labyrinth structures can be fabricated simply, the changes of flow rates with internal fluid pressures are much larger than those of the drip irrigation devices with soft silicon. Because the drip irrigation devices with only labyrinth structures can be utilized widely through the optimization of the fluid pressure, the length of the structures, and the cross-sectional area of them, the study on the optimization can play an important role for enhancing the performance of the drip irrigation devices. In this study, experimental and numerical studies for investigating the performance of the drip irrigation devices had been conducted. In the experiments and numerical calculations(CFD), the variable parameters were the lengths of the labyrinth structures(#1~#8) and the fluid pressures(0.5~3.0 bar).