Injected Pressure Compensating Dripper

Pressure compensating (pc) drippers provide uniform water flow through drippers inserted anywhere along the irrigation pipe, regardless of pressure differences. PC drippers provide precise, efficient, and cost-effective delivery of water and chemicals to plants and crops. Today the process for manufacturing pc drippers for use inside drip irrigation tubing has several drawbacks. The quality of the pc dripper depends upon a minimum of 3 (often 4) independent production machines each step widening the tolerances of the final product. The final step in the production of the emitter consists of assembling a flexible diaphragm into a stiff polyethylene housing. Often when the dripper is tested this diaphragm needs to be conditioned with high and low pressures to properly seat the diaphragm in the part before it gives the correct flow rate. This project will develop a dramatically simplified manufacturing process which will reduce costs and complexity of pc dripper production. It will turn the multi step process into a one step process by combining several injection processes into one and eliminating the need for assembly. The new design will also eliminate the need for conditioning of the flexible membrane in the PC dripper thereby improving repeatability and performance of the dripper flow rate over a range of pressures.