AN EXPERT SYSTEM VALIDATION FOR SOLID-SET SPRINKLER IRRIGATION SYSTEM DESIGN
MEHANNA H. M. *
Water Relations and Field Irrigation Department, National Research Centre, Dokki 12622, Cairo, Egypt.
S. M. SHAABAN
Water Relations and Field Irrigation Department, National Research Centre, Dokki 12622, Cairo, Egypt.
K. F. ELBAGOURY
Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Egypt.
A. A. ABDEL-AZIZ
Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Egypt.
M. G. ALASHRAM
Water Relations and Field Irrigation Department, National Research Centre, Dokki 12622, Cairo, Egypt.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
In Egypt most of irrigation systems such as sprinkler irrigation systems are installed with the help of manual based decision making or in many cases without proper designing procedures. These systems do not perform to the expectations. The problems encountered are low water use efficiency due to losses and improper distributions. An expert system with all the design criteria could help decision maker, non-technical, inexperienced irrigation system installers and farmers. Therefore, this study was done with the objective of validating an expert system model to benefit decision makers in designing solid-set sprinkler irrigation system. A rule-based program named EFSIS-ES (Engineering Factors of Sprinkler Irrigation System -Expert System) had been validated. A comparison was made between data calculated using EFSIS-ES model against the existed sprinkler irrigation system in the study region at El-Nubaria to validate the expert system. Results concluded that there are no significant differences between the field test data and EFSIS-ES model outputs. The user can compare many alternate systems through simple interactions with the expert system as it is not taking much time to generate different designs.
Keywords: Expert system, EFSIS-ES model, solid-set sprinkler irrigation, required pump power, total dynamic head (TDH), pump discharge output