Numerical Simulation and Analysis on Spray Drift Movement of Multirotor Plant Protection Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

• Published in: Energies (Basel) 2018-09, Vol.11 (9), p.2399
• Main Authors: Yang, Fengbo, Xue, Xinyu, Cai, Chen, Sun, Zhu, Zhou, Qingqing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aerodynamics; Agrochemicals; Air flow; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer applications; Computer simulation; Crop growth; Downwash; drift model; droplet; Feasibility studies; Fluid dynamics; Fluid flow; Hydrodynamics; K-epsilon turbulence model; Mathematical models; Mechanization; Modernization; Mountains; Multiphase flow; Neural networks; Nozzles; Pesticides; Plant protection; Spraying; Three dimensional flow; Turbulence; Two phase flow; unmanned aerial vehicle; Unmanned aerial vehicles; Wind; wind field
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en11092399

In recent years, multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become more and more important in the field of plant protection in China. Multirotor unmanned plant protection UAVs have been widely used in vast plains, hills, mountains, and other regions, and become an integral part of China’s agricultural mechanization and modernization. The easy takeoff and landing performances of UAVs are urgently required for timely and effective spraying, especially in dispersed plots and hilly mountains. However, the unclearness of wind field distribution leads to more serious droplet drift problems. The drift and distribution of droplets, which depend on airflow distribution characteristics of UAVs and the droplet size of the nozzle, are directly related to the control effect of pesticide and crop growth in different growth periods. This paper proposes an approach to research the influence of the downwash and windward airflow on the motion distribution of droplet group for the SLK-5 six-rotor plant protection UAV. At first, based on the Navier-Stokes (N-S) equation and SST k–ε turbulence model, the three-dimensional wind field numerical model is established for a six-rotor plant protection UAV under 3 kg load condition. Droplet discrete phase is added to N-S equation, the momentum and energy equations are also corrected for continuous phase to establish a two-phase flow model, and a three-dimensional two-phase flow model is finally established for the six-rotor plant protection UAV. By comparing with the experiment, this paper verifies the feasibility and accuracy of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method in the calculation of wind field and spraying two-phase flow field. Analyses are carried out through the combination of computational fluid dynamics and radial basis neural network, and this paper, finally, discusses the influence of windward airflow and droplet size on the movement of droplet groups.