Testing device for integrated irrigation and disinfection

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10317326-B2
Application number	US-201515318812-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 9, 2015
Priority date	May 6, 2015
Publication date	Jun 11, 2019
Grant date	Jun 11, 2019

Abstract

A testing device for integrated irrigation and disinfection includes a centrifugal pump, pressure sensors, flow sensors, an ion concentration sensor, and a control system. The testing device has comprehensive functions of fertilization, spray and drip irrigation load simulation, water and fertilizer parameter detection, fertilizer absorbing channel parameter detection and backflow channel parameter detection. The detection of nutrient ion concentration in a nutrient solution is combined with the aspects of irrigation, dynamic preparation of a nutrient solution and disinfection of a nutrient solution, to realize a high-precision dynamic preparation of a nutrient solution and irrigation area load simulation, and satisfy the requirements on a test system during a research and development process of an irrigation and fertilization system. The testing device is applicable to the research on the techniques and the development of a system for precise irrigation and accurate preparation of a nutrient solution in the field of facility agriculture.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device, comprising:
a fertilization pipeline to provide a flow of fertilizer laden water, a residual liquid recovery and disinfection pipeline connected to said fertilization pipeline to disinfect said flow of fertilizer laden water, a spraying, dripping and irrigation load simulation pipeline receiving said flow of fertilizer laden water from said residual liquid recovery and disinfection pipeline, a water and fertilizer parameter detection pipeline connected to said spraying, dripping and irrigation load simulation pipeline to measure fertilizer parameters within said flow of fertilizer laden water, said water and fertilizer parameter detection pipeline including a fertilizer absorbing channel parameter detection pipeline, a backflow channel parameter detection pipeline and a control system;
the fertilization pipeline including a water supply pump, a fertilization control electromagnetic valve, a fertilizer mixing tank, an irrigation pump, and an irrigation control electromagnetic valve sequentially connected to said irrigation pump;
the spraying, dripping and irrigation load simulation pipeline including a proportion-control valve, a first set of machines for controlling and measuring fertilization within irrigation to be measured and a second set of machines for controlling and measuring fertilization within irrigation to be measured, and a first pressure sensor;
the water and fertilizer parameter detection pipeline including an irrigation machine to be measured, a flow sensor, a second pressure sensor, a pH sensor, an EC sensor, and a main nutrient element ion concentration transferring and transforming module sequentially connected to the pH sensor, the EC sensor and the irrigation machine to be measured; and
the control system including transfer switches connected in series in control loops of each of the electromagnetic valves and a drive motor for said irrigation pump.

2. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 further comprising:
an electric control system including an irrigated area control electromagnetic valve provided with a transfer switch having a manual branch connected with a control switch in series, so that said electric control system can realize manual control, automatic control and complete switchover of irrigated area selection, water supply, fertilizer injection, nutrient solution preparation and irrigation/fertilization, so as to ensure that a zoning irrigation and a zoning variable fertilization can be carried out even if under a manual mode.

3. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 2 wherein the electric control system comprises motor breaker protection devices, alternating current contactors, control relays, transfer switches, fuses, solid-state relays and control switches, which is responsible for the control of a water supply pump, an irrigation pump, a fertilizer mixing control electromagnetic valve, a fertilization control electromagnetic valve, an irrigation control electromagnetic valve, the irrigated area control electromagnetic valve and a fertilizer absorption control electromagnetic valve, along with the switchover between the manual and automatic operating modes.

4. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 2 further comprising an intelligent measuring and controlling system including a microcontroller and peripheral interface circuits responsible for sending various control signals to the electric control system and detecting various operating status parameters in real time, including a nutrient solution EC value, a nutrient solution pH value and an irrigation/fertilization flow sensor, according to irrigation/fertilization modes and operating parameters selectively set by operators to control the irrigation/fertilization process to be automatically performed in terms of set requirements.

5. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 wherein the water supply pump of the fertilization pipeline supplies water from a laboratory reservoir to a fertilizer mixing tank while the irrigation pump supplies water and fertilizer to the irrigated area, both the water pump and the irrigation pump control the pressure and flow of the pipelines by means of frequency conversion and speed regulation.

6. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 wherein residual liquids of the nutrient solution within the residual liquid recovery and disinfection pipeline are collected from two culturing troughs and are temporarily stored in a liquid storage tank after being filtered and disinfected, the residual liquids being added to the fertilizer mixing tank by a residual liquid adding device, an ultraviolet ray plus ozone apparatus provides disinfection in the residual liquid recovery and disinfection pipeline.

7. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 wherein water outlet pressures of the irrigation machines to be measured are controlled and measured by the proportion-control valve to realize the spraying, dripping and irrigation load simulation function within the spraying, dripping and irrigation load simulation pipeline, the spraying, dripping and irrigation load simulation function realizes the performance detection for other fertilization systems and provides a basis for the performance detection of other fertilization systems.

8. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 wherein the water and fertilizer parameter detection pipeline is used for measuring water flow, pressure, pH value, EC value and main nutrient element ion concentration of the irrigation machine to be measured, so as to improve the precision and effectiveness for fertilization.

9. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 wherein the fertilization absorbing channel parameter detection pipeline uses a weighing method to measure the flow of a mother solution.

10. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 wherein the backflow channel parameter detection pipeline is used for measuring and controlling the pressure and flow of the fertilizer absorption backflow channel.

11. The irrigating and disinfecting integrated testing device of claim 1 wherein a main control system of the control system pipeline uses an industrial personal computer to collect and storage parameters, provides driving programs for a sensor and an execution mechanism, and opens a communication protocol and a control protocol with protection level at IP65.

Assignees

• Univ Jiangsu

Inventors

• Zuo Zhiyu
• Qin Lijuan
• Mao Hanping
• Zhang Xiaodong
• Ni Jiheng
• Li Qinglin
• Lv tianyuan

Classifications

• A01C23/042 Primary

  Adding fertiliser to watering systems · CPC title

• A01C23/025

  Continuous injection tools · CPC title

• A01C23/008

  Tanks, chassis or related parts · CPC title

• A01C23/047

  Spraying of liquid fertilisers · CPC title

• Y02A40/237

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic