An attempt to reduce spray drift in wind tunnel by substituting nozzles on the boom
Résumé
Spray drift can be defined as the movement of a small droplet at application time by the air action. Several factors are known to affect spray drift with significant differences such as physical parameters, technological parameters, and meteorological parameters. The mitigation of spray drift from the agricultural application is an important issue that concerns many researchers and authors working with field tests. Wind tunnel technique is considered as an alternative method to assess spray drift that moves away from the target site intended under different settings as boom heights and wind speeds. In 2015, IRSTEA Montpellier wind tunnel was fitted with a new setup using different nozzle types mounted on the nozzle boom in a lateral position towards wind direction to study how nozzle combination has influenced on spray drift. The main goal of this present work aims for studying the effect of substitution nozzles on spray drift mitigation performance. The main results of this study showed significant differences in spray drift when one or two of air induction nozzles were placed before or after standard flat fan nozzles for different parameters setting as nozzle type and wind speed. Results showed that the best combination of nozzles leading to reduce spray drift ratio is when air induction nozzles are placed at the end of the boom especially the combination of 2Flat fan nozzles+2Flat fan air induction nozzles compared to other combinations and fill reference nozzle on the boom.