Methodology to Investigate the Hydraulic Characteristics of a Water-Powered Piston-Type Proportional Injector Used for Agricultural Chemigation

Abstract

Abstract. The proportional injector is commonly used in agricultural chemigation due to its relatively high injection ratio. A major challenge with the proportional injector is related to its dependence on differential pressure, which is significantly influenced by changes in the viscosity, and setting injection ratio. A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of differential pressures, solution viscosities, and setting injection ratios on the inlet and injection flow rates of a D25RE2 proportional injector. A mathematical model was developed to represent the hydraulic performance of this proportional injector. Finally, the mathematical model was verified using four different kinds of chemicals (humic acid, urea ammonium nitrate 32% N, fosthiazate, and colza oil). The inlet flow rate increased significantly with increasing differential pressure and decreased with increasing setting injection ratio. Results showed that the highest operating differential pressure should not be greater than 0.15 MPa for the D25RE2 proportional injector. The inlet flow rate gradually decreased with increasing viscosity, and a quadratic function relationship was derived between the inlet flow rate and the viscosity. The injection flow rate decreased with increasing viscosity. However, the viscosity had a slight influence on the injection flow rate when it was lower than 20 mPa·s. Mathematical models for calculating the inlet and injection flow rates with the influence of viscosity were developed, respectively. The coefficient of determination and the root mean square error (RMSE) for inlet flow rate calculation model were 0.8316 and 143.36 kg h-1, respectively. The coefficient of determination and the RMSE for the injection flow rate calculation model were 0.9706 and 0.9520 kg h-1, respectively. The calculating formula of inlet flow rate had a satisfactory accuracy under low differential pressure and high setting injection ratio. The calculating formula of the injection flow rate had a good accuracy, which is useful for calculating the injection flow rate when injected with different kinds of solutions. The average deviations between calculated and experimental injection flow rates with injection ratios of 0.2%, 1.2%, and 2% were obtained as 4.96%, 4.66%, and 4.1% respectively, which indicated that the average deviations decreased with increasing setting injection ratio. Results from this study are useful for both designers and users to effectively manage agricultural chemigation system with the proportional injector. Keywords: Agriculture, Chemigation, Proportional injector, Hydraulic performance.