Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries

The cylindrical filters presently used in drip irrigation systems frequently clog, increasing pressure loss and lowering the flow rate through the filters. This work investigates alternative filtration strategies that increase the reliability of, and are compatible with, existing systems. To test...

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Main Authors: Greenlee, Alison S., Murray, Timothy, Lesniewski, Victor, Jeunnette, Mark, Winter, Amos G.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: ASME International 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99523
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-8968
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4151-0889
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7434-2447
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author Greenlee, Alison S.
Murray, Timothy
Lesniewski, Victor
Jeunnette, Mark
Winter, Amos G.
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Greenlee, Alison S.
Murray, Timothy
Lesniewski, Victor
Jeunnette, Mark
Winter, Amos G.
author_sort Greenlee, Alison S.
collection MIT
description The cylindrical filters presently used in drip irrigation systems frequently clog, increasing pressure loss and lowering the flow rate through the filters. This work investigates alternative filtration strategies that increase the reliability of, and are compatible with, existing systems. To test different filtration strategies, a drip irrigation test setup was built to measure the pressure loss across different filters as particles accumulated. These experiments found that pleated cartridge filters, with high effective surface area, incurred the lowest pressure losses. More significantly, it was observed during these tests that the filtered out particles settled to the bottom of the filter housing when flow through the filter ceased. This inspired the redesign of the filter housing such that the housing extended far below the filter, providing a catch basin away from the filter for the particles to settle. Fixing the filter independently of the bottom casing significantly improves the overall performance of the filtration system and can be inexpensively manufactured via blow molding. This paper experimentally demonstrates that the cartridge filter inside the redesigned housing can filter out over 2 kg of sand while maintaining less than a .03 bar pressure drop across the filter at a flow rate of 25 l/s.
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spelling mit-1721.1/995232024-03-23T02:15:53Z Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries Greenlee, Alison S. Murray, Timothy Lesniewski, Victor Jeunnette, Mark Winter, Amos G. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Photovoltaic Research Laboratory MIT Energy Initiative Sloan Automotive Laboratory Hatsopoulos Microfluids Laboratory (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Greenlee, Alison S. Murray, Timothy Lesniewski, Victor Jeunnette, Mark Nathaniel Winter, Amos The cylindrical filters presently used in drip irrigation systems frequently clog, increasing pressure loss and lowering the flow rate through the filters. This work investigates alternative filtration strategies that increase the reliability of, and are compatible with, existing systems. To test different filtration strategies, a drip irrigation test setup was built to measure the pressure loss across different filters as particles accumulated. These experiments found that pleated cartridge filters, with high effective surface area, incurred the lowest pressure losses. More significantly, it was observed during these tests that the filtered out particles settled to the bottom of the filter housing when flow through the filter ceased. This inspired the redesign of the filter housing such that the housing extended far below the filter, providing a catch basin away from the filter for the particles to settle. Fixing the filter independently of the bottom casing significantly improves the overall performance of the filtration system and can be inexpensively manufactured via blow molding. This paper experimentally demonstrates that the cartridge filter inside the redesigned housing can filter out over 2 kg of sand while maintaining less than a .03 bar pressure drop across the filter at a flow rate of 25 l/s. MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering International Development Enterprises 2015-10-30T15:00:52Z 2015-10-30T15:00:52Z 2014-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99523 Greenlee, Alison, Timothy Murray, Victor Lesniewski, Mark Jeunnette, and Amos G. Winter, V. "Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries." ASME 2014 International Design Engineering Technical Conference & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (August 2014). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-8968 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4151-0889 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7434-2447 en_US http://www.asmeconferences.org/IDETC2014/ Proceedings of the ASME 2014 International Design Engineering Technical Conference & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf ASME International Prof. Winter via Angie Locknar
spellingShingle Greenlee, Alison S.
Murray, Timothy
Lesniewski, Victor
Jeunnette, Mark
Winter, Amos G.
Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries
title Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries
title_full Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries
title_fullStr Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries
title_full_unstemmed Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries
title_short Delivering a low-cost, reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro-irrigation in developing countries
title_sort delivering a low cost reliable drip irrigation filtration system for micro irrigation in developing countries
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99523
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-8968
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4151-0889
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7434-2447
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