Smart system for cavitation cause measurement and control in irrigation pump

Abstract

The objective of this study is to develop an effective smart system for cavitation cause measurement and control in pump units. An analysis of the known sources of measurement and control of the cavitation shows that the known methods are based on the measurement of the effects of causing cavitation such as vibration, temperature and pressure changes in the pipeline. The proposed smart cavitation cause measurement and control system is based on converting water- air ratio to the electrical signal by means of capacitance sensor that has very low value. The electrical scheme of low capacitance measurement by means of modern microcontrollers, block diagram and algorithm of smart system for cavitation cause measurement were developed. The complete smart system for cavitation cause measurement and control by means of modern microcontrollers was implemented in hardware and conducted experiments. The theoretically and experimentally obtained capacitance and the water - air ratio relationship is presented. Based on experimental studies, the relative error of the measurement system was determined and its graph is submitted.