Presented at the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) expo in Canterbury, the project by final year mechanical engineering students Tom Addis, Mathew Weeber, Raoul Schipper, and Ben Wright led by associate Professor Mark Jermy was the centre of attention for farmers keen for ideas on how to keep their irrigators upright.
Following the Canterbury wind storms of September 2013 farmer approached FAR to research how to stop irrigators blowing over.
While such a project did not fit the mandate for FAR work, FAR chief executive Nick Pyke invested in the students, as an industry sponsor, to do the project.
“It was good utilisation of farmer levy funds.
“These students have come up with something quite unique.
“In fact it’s being patented as we speak and the objective now is to get it out and available to farmers as quick as we can,” Pyke said.
The students had to research the problem, identify solutions, tag the best one and make it happen.
Solutions were brainstormed to reduce drag, add mass and anchor irrigators in high winds.
Given some farmers had successfully restrained irrigators by tying spans to machinery and bales, the mass-based approach was favoured.
A solution was developed to streamline the process of adding mass to the system.
That resulted in the development of a bag capable of holding 1500 litres of water that was attached to the main span of an irrigator and when activated unravelled to the ground and filled with water.
The bags were attached along the length of the centre pivot, taking about 30 minutes each to fill once they were activated.
Wherever the irrigator was in the paddock, the bag could drop down, irrespective of wind direction and in the weight-based solution hold the irrigator firm to the ground in high winds.
The design was such that it would not create drag on the main span and no element of the irrigator would be over-stressed.
Once deactivated the bags were emptied of water and returned to their storage position on the span.
Precise detail was not able to be revealed because of the patent process.
Irrigation design was not considered in the project because it was not an option to change international manufacturers’ designs.
“The project brief was how they blew over, not which ones,” Schipper said.
“We did not have the power to tell a United States manufacturer to change because of a design fault,” he said.
Discussion was underway with a company interested in developing the device, Pyke said.
“The one requirement in securing a developer is that we get this available to farmers as quick as possible.”
Pyke said the only industry that had invested in the project to date was the arable sector through arable farmer levy.
“We suggested the dairy industry get involved but it had not picked up on that, as yet,” he said.
The project investment had used top class engineering students with an interest in agriculture.
“That is great utilisation of resource for our industry and also encouragement for getting young people into the arable sector,” Pyke said.
