ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF A MICROIRRIGATION LATERAL

Sa？etak Micro-irrigation systems are methods of applying water, nutrients and chemicals directly to the plant root area at a controllable rate, which allows maximum results and minimum use of water and energy. For these reasons, microirrigation systems are developed in arid countries with insuffi ciency water resources. It has expanded to many countries engaging in modern agricultural practices due to relatively high agricultural outputs and low energy expenses. For micro-irrigation to be profi table, system design’s must be based on precise calculations and rigorous management. The precision with which micro-irrigation lateral and network’s are designed is of fundamental importance to system operation, the uniformity of distribution of water and fertilizer, and the consumption of energy. The computation model presented in this paper is based on equations of mass and energy conservation within an elemental control volume on the lateral. Considering the variation of the out-fl ow regime leads to an algebraic, coupled and non-linear equation system whose resolution is based on the numeric methods to a defective analytic approach. In this work, the control volume method was selected due to its simplicity. A program of computation has been developed for this and applied to a lateral for the fi rst time. Results from this simple model are precise and are similar to those from other validated models. Precision design increase effi ciency of water and fertilizer distribution. This method can be applied to the design of micro-irrigation lateral’s or network’s