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COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCIES OF HORIZONTAL VERSUS VERTICAL HYDROPONICS PLANT GROWTH SYSTEMS

My name is Charisma Jankee, currently a year 3 student at The University of the West Indies reading for BSc Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Biosystems. The purpose of the blog is to document the economic productivity, quality, and efficiency of horizontal versus vertical hydroponic systems.

Thursday 28th October, 2021

Concept Selection was done by using the pairwise comparison to create a Pugh Chart

Pairwise:

Pugh Chart:

Concept design 3 was chosen for the vertical system.

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Calculations - Average flow rate

Diameter of pipe, D = 4” = 0.1016 m R.T.F Volume flow rate Flow rate = Area × Velocity Velocity A pipe with an inner diameter of 4 inches contains water that flows at an average velocity of 2m/s Volume flow rate = A × V = 0.0081 × 2 = 0.0162 m 3 /s Converting seconds to hours Volume flow rate = 0.0162 × 3600 = 52.32 m 3 /hr

Monday 04th October, 2021

Today was hectic, so I decided to get some useful links for the project only. https://journals.utm.my/jurnalteknologi/article/view/13931 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fes3.83 https://www.hortipower.com/blogs/news/home-hydroponics-for-beginners-how-to-get-started https://constantdelights.com/post/wick-system https://www.nosoilsolutions.com/6-different-types-hydroponic-systems/ https://books.google.tt/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rwlMDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=design+and+build+of+NFT+horizontal+system&ots=f8RjGmZx58&sig=xLplOWqzwMN9NfCZo94erfwROAg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dinkar-Gaikwad/publication/346953811_Hydroponics_Cultivation_of_Crops/links/5fd3971b92851c13fe7bd7ff/Hydroponics-Cultivation-of-Crops.pdf Hoagland, D.R. and Arnon, D.I. 1938. The water culture method for growing plants without soil. California Agricultural Experiment Station Circulars, 347: 1-39

Thursday 20th January, 2022.

This is to connect the 4-inch T joint at the top of the bucket to the drainage pipe and flange inside the reservoir. the grow tower was cut and an additional 4inch pipe with pockets were added to make them even. Once the 4inch T joint is secured, on either side of the T joint, a 9 ½” length of 4-inch PVC is glued to the T joint to accommodate a 4-inch elbow on either side. The two plant towers can now be connected using PVC glue. the flange was attached and the pump line was tread inside using a string. The pump’s outlet was routed to the top of the towers using water tubes. The water will flow down from a shower head, trickling down the top of the tower and back into the reservoir. The shower head was constructed by using a 4-inch PVC cap. The cap was placed on a round object and heated with the heat gun, creating a “belly”. On the cap, three rows of holes were drilled with a 1/16” drill bit around the circumference. At the centre of the sho...