Design and Development of Sprinkler Head for a Pivot Style Farming Irrigation System

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Cascade Manufacturing, located in the field, north of MacGregor, Manitoba, is an agricultural irrigation products manufacturer with a strong background in farming. Cascade Manufacturing and Cascade Colony Farms are business partners with shared investments that include a 4500-acre farm, with 8 center-pivot irrigation systems. Together both employ 10 employees to run its farming and manufacturing business. The commercially available pivot style farming irrigation systems that Cascade Manufacturing uses to water their crops have replaceable sprinkler heads. Although these have an adjustable flow, it requires manually changing out a component. There is a need to keep stopping the system for the flow to be regulated as required, however, only limited incremental adjustments can be made. The Technology Access Centre for Aerospace and Manufacturing (TACAM) at Red River College (RRC) is collaborating with Cascade Manufacturing, who have now developed a concept for a sprinkler head. This would replace the existing one and provide a significant increase in the adjustability of the flow remotely in real time using a control panel. TACAM will work with Cascade to take this beyond a conceptual design to developing a detailed design of the sprinkler head. The new design will have an adjustable and automated mechanism that controls the flow of the water to allow a more targeting irrigation plan. Additionally, the sprinklers will have an upstream flow meter that will detect if there is a clog, indicating that one area is not getting as much water as the rest. The adjustable sprinkler will open fully to help clear the clog. After the detail design is completed, the project will proceed unto prototype development phase. Testing and validation will also be performed. This design will reduce the unscheduled downtime due to the need to keep changing a sprinkler component. If this project is successfully implemented, Cascade Manufacturing will be confidently positioned to introduce a superior pivot-style irrigation system product into the market. This is going to drive new demands for assembly workers, distributors and growers, thereby creating job opportunities in the area and providing employment for otherwise seasonal employees. In addition, there is a high density of irrigated crops in western Canada mainly Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The USA has even bigger opportunities with high density crop irrigation in the Midwest and western United States. Those states include Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Idaho, Washington and California. The combined irrigated acreage in those 6 states is over 32 million with center-pivot irrigation. This should readily provide a large market for the new sprinkler system.