Bourns Hall

 

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Senior Design Project,

Team 6:
Sprinkler Drive System for Rotary Sprinklers

Sarah Kinney

Matt Hall

Nora Onofrio

Sponsor: The Toro Company

Project Overview

      The Toro Company has requested the development of a low cost, efficient, drive for use in their rotary irrigation sprinklers. Our design must be able to pass extensive testing: 500 hours of rotation at 70psi to meet the residential standards, and 750 hours at 100psi to meet the commercial standards. It must also be able to withstand debris testing.

Example of typical rotary sprinkler usage, and current production rotary sprinkler:

    

          

 

     A rotor sprinkler is, by definition, a member of the medium to large turf sprinkler family, allowing for efficient coverage of expansive areas. We will need to develop this drive at the lowest cost possible, both in materials and production; however, it will also need to be efficient and be able to meet industry standards. Once our design has been finalized, it will need to be rigorously tested to ensure it meets the high design specifications of Toro. 

 

 

Design Results

     As our design process has continued, we have come up with a full sprinkler drive, nozzle, and case. We have designed all these parts in ProEngineer and come up with the following assemblies:

 

Full Design Assembly

        

Verge and Escapement Gear Assembly

Planetary Gear Drive

 

Cross section of Assembly

Our design has been completed and finalized. We were able to test our sprinkler up to 35 psi, and get consistent

rotation. We also were able to test our sprinkler with debris in the water, and the escapement gear and verge were able to perform perfectly with large amounts of debris.

Our design cut down on the amount of parts on existing drives by half. This was a huge accomplishement for our group to create enough torque and consistent rotation, while reducing the amount of parts, and therefore the production cost and time greatly.

 

 

 To view more of our analysis and design details, the following presentation can be observed:

Final Design Powerpoint

 

To view the finalized design in action:

 

Sprinkler Movie