Home

HUNTER- Self Powered Irrigation Valve

Background

Hunter Industries is a company that offers solutions for irrigation, architectural and landscaping lighting, and custom

manufacturing industries. The goal of this family-owned company is to create efficient solutions for irrigation systems.

Traditionally, the power options for irrigation control systems are mainly two types: replaceable battery and solar power.

However, both of these options have drawbacks. On the one hand, the battery of the system needs to be replaced once

a year, which is a tedious task, with high human labor costs as well as high environmental impacts from battery disposal.

A solar solution is available which eliminates both the need for frequent, regular servicing and the production of waste

batteries, a solar panel and its' wiring need to be extend out above the irrigation system's box to get access to the sunlight,

which takes space, necessitates more weather proofing, and comes with an increased risk of vandalism.

Objectives

The proposed objective for the team was to figure out if enough energy is able to be harness from a single actuation in

an irrigation valve, in order to make it self-sustainable. In order to be able to do that, the team proposed 4 different design

ideas which could create enough energy that it would make the valve self-sustainable. The team decided to test two different

methods, not only to go about it with different approaches, but also to give the sponsor different possible options or routes

the team approached.

The first method that was decided upon was a hydropower turbine. This hydroturbine would be a turbine that it's blades would

be pushed with the force of the water, and energy would be created with the rotation of the blades in a generator. With the energy

created, the 9 volt battery inside the irrigation node that the sponsor provided, would be recharged, thus making itself self-sustainable.

HydroTurbine Schematic

The Second Method was a Thermoelectric generator with the use of the Seebeck Effect. A temperature difference between the two nodes would cause the generation of a potential difference between the two nodes. Thus, the temperature difference between two sides of the unit is proportional to the voltage generated, which is expressed by the equation: Vgen = k∆T.

Seebeck Effect Schematic

FINAL DESIGNS

HYDROPOWER

This is the final design obtained for the water turbine design. After many design tests, it was concluded that this design gave the highest power output along with the

lowest pressure drop. The following picture is the test set up located at Hunter's facilities, where a controlled flow rate and pressure regulator was used.

Figure: Flow rate and Pressure Regulator Figure: Twin Turbine Setup with Arduino+ Voltage Divider Circuit Figure: Schematic of Final and Optimal Design

THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR DESIGN

In the picture below, the final design for the TEG design being tested is shown, along with a schematic of it.

Figure: TEG testing site Figure: Setup Schematic

It was concluded that connecting 2 TEG in series would provide more than the minimum required 90 Joules during a Sunny day, and the Hydroturbine design did accumulate charge with just 2 minute cycles. The following chart

is a summary of the results of both concepts.

Figure: Chart of final results