Criteria and procedures for evaluation of solids mixing in agricultural sprayer tanks

An agitation effectiveness index (AGEF) was defined to help evaluate the ef fectiveness of hydraulic agitation systems in agricultural sprayer tanks re gardless of tank size and shape. AGEF was calculated based on three measure d mixing criteria: particle deposits remaining on the bottom of the tank fo llowing the application, the coefficient of variation of the mixture concen tration in the line to the boom, and the ratio of maximum deviation of the mixture concentration at the tank outlet to the mean concentration measured during the application. The ratio of AGEF to required hydraulic power of t he agitation system, named Power Ratio, was also used as another parameter to evaluate sprayer tank agitation systems. The method suggested in this ar ticle was applied to evaluate a large number of agitation experiments condu cted as well as a previous researcher's unevaluated agitation data in order to show its applicability. Use of this method is limited to solid-liquid t ype mixtures in order to determine the suspension uniformity achieved with hydraulic agitators. Kaolin clay was used as solid particles since this is a common carrier for wettable powder and granular pesticides. The results s howed that AGEF was sensitive enough to enable reasonable comparisons and t hat this method can be used to standardize minimum requirements of a hydrau lic jet agitation system. AGEF and Power Ratio provided a novel approach to identify efficient agitation systems with low energy requirements.