Pesticide drift is a serious agricultural problem that is especially significant for perennial crops. Most studies use tracers to quantify pesticide drift. Nevertheless, in Brazil, consensus is lacking on which tracer is the most effective. Thus, given the importance of coffee crops in Brazil, we evaluated several tracers used in application efficiency assessments. We also quantified the drift in coffee crops from hollow cone nozzles with and without air induction and then compared the results with European drift simulation models. We tested Brilliant Blue, Blankophor, Sodium Fluorescein, Rhodamine B and Brilliant Sulfoflavine tracers by evaluating surface tension, hidrogenionic potential, filter paper extraction, sunlight stability and agitation stability. Drift evaluation was based on the ISO 22866 standard. The experiment was set up in randomized blocks with 10 replications in a 2 x 20 split plot consisting of two nozzle types and twenty lines spaced 2.5 m apart and parallel to the target crop row. The spray was a mixture of water and Rhodamine B fluorescent dye at 100 mg L-1. The spray was applied at 400 L ha-1 using a hydro-pneumatic sprayer. Viscosity was similar for all tracers. Brilliant Sulfoflavine had the highest extraction efficiency, whereas Brilliant Sulfoflavine and Brilliant Blue were the most stable in sunlight. Blankophor had the least agitation stability and Brilliant Sulfoflavine was the most appropriate for spray deposition and drift assessment. Rhodamine B was the best option for filter paper targets among low-cost tracers available in Brazil. The air induction nozzle reduced drift to 20 m from the treated area; however, both nozzles produced the same drift within this limit. The drift models behaved differently and did not accurately estimate drift near the target row. / A deriva de produtos fitossanitários é um dos maiores problemas da agricultura moderna, principalmente em cultivos perenes. Ao quantificar esta e outras perdas dos produtos, na maioria dos casos são utilizados traçadores. Devido à importância da cafeicultura no Brasil, e que não há consenso sobre qual é o melhor traçador nestes estudos, este trabalho objetivou avaliar alguns traçadores utilizados em estudos de eficiência da aplicação, além de determinar a deriva gerada pelas pontas de pulverização jato cônico vazio com e sem indução de ar nas aplicações na cultura do café e comparar as curvas com modelos europeus de simulação de deriva. Os traçadores utilizados foram: Azul Brilhante, Blankophor, Fluoresceína Sódica, Rodamina B e Sulfoflavina Brilhante. As características avaliadas nas soluções contendo os traçadores foram: tensão superficial, pH, viscosidade, extração em alvos de papel filtrante e estabilidade à luz solar e à agitação. Na avaliação da deriva ocasionada pelas aplicações em cafeeiro, seguiu-se a norma ISO 22866. Foi utilizado o delineamento em blocos casualizados, com 10 repetições, em esquema de parcelas subdivididas no espaço 2 x 20, sendo dois tipos de pontas e vinte distâncias paralelas à linha de cultivo fora da área-alvo, espaçadas entre si por 2,5 m. A calda foi composta por água+corante fluorescente rodamina B na concentração de 100 mg L-1. Utilizou-se o volume de calda de 400 L ha- 1, aplicado por pulverizador hidropneumático. Dentre as características físico-químicas, somente a viscosidade não foi influenciada pelos traçadores. A maior eficiência de extração em alvo de papel foi obtida pela Sulfoflavina Brilhante, que juntamente com o Azul Brilhante demonstraram ser os traçadores mais estáveis à luz solar. O Blankophor foi o traçador que teve menor estabilidade à agitação da calda. A Sulfoflavina Brilhante mostrou ser o traçador mais adequado aos estudos de deposição de calda e deriva nas aplicações de produtos fitossanitários. Entre os traçadores de baixo custo e maior disponibilidade no Brasil, o corante fluorescente Rodamina B apresentou ser a melhor opção ao se utilizar como alvo papel filtrante. A ponta de jato cônico vazio com indução de ar reduziu a deriva até 20 m de distância da área tratada. A partir dessa distância, ambas as pontas geraram a mesma deriva. As curvas de deriva elaboradas a partir das aplicações pelas pontas de pulverização demonstraram ter comportamentos diferentes, sobretudo na região mais próxima do cafeeiro. / Mestre em Agronomia

Dans les 50 dernières années, les avancées dans le domaine de la protection des plantes ont contribué à augmenter les rendements et à assurer une large production. Facile à utiliser et plutôt bon marché à l’époque, les pesticides ont prouvé leur efficacité. Cependant, quand ils sont appliqués aux cultures, une partie du produit n’atteint pas sa cible et est perdu dans l’air ou au sol. Par conséquent, des efforts ont été consentis pour améliorer leur efficacité et leur innocuité sanitaire, souvent grâce à des lois environnementales internationales. Les produits sont appliqués à partir de matériels combinant type de buse/pression induisant des gammes de vitesses et de tailles de gouttelettes très diverses (Chapitre 2). Une mesure simultanée de ces vitesses et tailles est ainsi d’une grande importance dans le processus de pulvérisation. Il existe de nombreuses méthodes pour la mesure des caractéristiques des gouttelettes qui peuvent être divisées en trois catégories: mécaniques, électriques et optiques. Ces dernières apparaissent comme les plus pertinentes puisqu’étant non invasives et en perturbant donc pas le processus de pulvérisation. Les améliorations récentes dans le domaine du traitement des images et la réduction du coût des systèmes d’imagerie ont ainsi accru l’intérêt des techniques d’imagerie rapide pour les applications agricoles telles que la pulvérisation de pesticides. Cette thèse s’est donc focalisée sur le développement d’une telle technique pour la caractérisation des sprays (micro et macro). Les travaux effectués ont permis de démontrer que les caractéristiques d’un jet de pesticides peuvent être correctement et précisément mesurées par des techniques d’imagerie non-invasives couplées à des traitements spécifiques. Les travaux à venir consisteraient notamment en l’amélioration de la précision des mesures effectuées: précision sub-pixellique, calcul des profondeurs de champ, mesure de particules non sphériques. / In recent years, advances in plant protection have contributed considerably to increasing crop yields in a sustainable way. Easy to apply and rather inexpensive, pesticides have proven to be very efficient. However, when pesticides are applied to crops some of the spray may not reach the target, but move outside the intended spray area. This can cause serious economic and environmental problems. Most of the pesticides are applied using agricultural sprayers. These sprayers use hydraulic nozzles which break the liquid into droplets with a wide range of droplet sizes and velocities and determine the spray pattern. Small droplets are prone to wind drift, while large droplets can runoff from the target surface and deposit on the soil. Therefore, efforts are being undertaken to come to a more sustainable use of pesticides which is more and more regulated by international environmental laws. One of the main challenges is to reduce spray losses and maximize spray deposition and efficacy by improving the spray characteristics and the spray application process. Because mechanisms of droplets leaving a hydraulic spray nozzle are very complex and difficult to quantify or model, there is a need for accurate quantification techniques. The recent improvements in digital image processing, sensitivity of imaging systems and cost reduction have increased the interest in high-speed (HS) imaging techniques for agricultural applications in general and for pesticide applications in specific. This thesis focused on the development and application of high speed imaging techniques to measure micro (droplet size and velocity) and macro (spray angle and shape, liquid sheet length) spray characteristics.The general aim was to show that the spray characteristics from agricultural spray nozzles can be measured correctly with the developed imaging techniques in a non-intrusive way. After a review of the spray application process and techniques for spray characterization (Chapter 2), two image acquisition systems were developed in Chapter 3 based on single droplet experiments using a high speed camera and a piezoelectric droplet generator. 58 combinations of lenses, light sources, diffusers, and exposure times were tested using shadowgraph (background) imaging and evaluated based on image quality parameters (signal to noise rate, entropy ratio and contrast ratio), light stability and overexposure ratio and the accuracy of the droplet size measurement. These resulted into development of two image acquisition systems for measuring the macro and micro spray characteristics. The HS camera with a macro video zoom lens at a working distance of 143 mm with a larger field of view (FOV) of 88 mm x 110 mm in combination with a halogen spotlight and a diffuser was selected for measuring the macro spray characteristics (spray angle, spray shape and liquid sheet length). The optimal set-up for measuring micro spray characteristics (droplet size and velocity) consisted of a high speed camera with a 6 μs exposure time, a microscope lens at a working distance of 430 mm resulting in a FOV of 10.5 mm x 8.4 mm, and a xenon light source used as a backlight without diffuser. In Chapter 4 image analysis and processing algorithms were developed for measuring single droplet characteristics (size and velocity) and different approaches for image segmentation were presented. With the set-up for micro spray characterization and using these dedicated image analysis algorithms (Chapter 4), measurements using a single droplet generator in droplet on demand (DOD) and continuous mode were performed in Chapter 5. The effects of the operating parameters, including voltage pulse width and pulse amplitude with 4 nozzle orifice sizes (261 μm, 123 μm, 87 μm and 67 μm) on droplet diameter and droplet velocity have been characterized (...)

The purpose of this study was to simulate the liquid flow rate distribution in the etching modules and find the optimal setup in order to achieve a distribution as homogenous as possible. The commercial software Matlab 2015a has been employed for all the numerical simulations. The optimization has been carried out varying several parameters, i.e. spray cross sections of the nozzles, the oscillation parameters, the rotating angle of the nozzles within etching module 1 and the nozzle arrangement inside the modules. Furthermore, the optimization has been carried out separately along the two directions of the modules. The results achieved computationally have been validated via experimental procedures. During this study a specific experimental setup has been developed in order to be able to compare experimental and computational results. The validation process has shown that the computational method matches the experimental results to a good extent. The experimental liquid distribution in etching module 2 widely matches the simulations to a quantitative extent, while the one in etching module 1 provides the same qualitative but different quantitative results.

This thesis is divided into four distinct chapters all linked by the topic of spray cooling. Chapter one gives a detailed categorization of future and current spray cooling applications, and reviews the major advantages and disadvantages that spray cooling has over other high heat flux cooling techniques. Chapter two outlines the developmental goals of spray cooling, which are to increase the output of a current system and to enable new technologies to be technically feasible. Furthermore, this chapter outlines in detail the impact that land, air, sea, and space environments have on the cooling system and what technologies could be enabled in each environment with the aid of spray cooling. In particular, the heat exchanger, condenser and radiator are analyzed in their corresponding environments. Chapter three presents an experimental investigation of a fluid management system for a large area multiple nozzle spray cooler. A fluid management or suction system was used to control the liquid film layer thickness needed for effective heat transfer. An array of sixteen pressure atomized spray nozzles along with an imbedded fluid suction system was constructed. Two surfaces were spray tested one being a clear grooved Plexiglas plate used for visualization and the other being a bottom heated grooved 4.5 x 4.5 cm2 copper plate used to determine the heat flux. The suction system utilized an array of thin copper tubes to extract excess liquid from the cooled surface. Pure water was ejected from two spray nozzle configurations at flow rates of 0.7 L/min to 1 L/min per nozzle. It was found that the fluid management system provided fluid removal efficiencies of 98% with a 4-nozzle array, and 90% with the full 16-nozzle array for the downward spraying orientation. The corresponding heat fluxes for the 16 nozzle configuration were found with and without the aid of the fluid management system. It was found that the fluid management system increased heat fluxes on the average of 30 W/cm2 at similar values of superheat. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of this array at removing heat at full levels of suction is approximately 50% & 40% of a single nozzle at respective 10[degrees]C & 15[degrees]C values of superheat. The heat transfer data more closely resembled convective pooling boiling. Thus, it was concluded that the poor heat transfer was due to flooding occurring which made the heat transfer mechanism mainly forced convective boiling and not spray cooling. Finally, Chapter four gives a detailed guide for the design and construction of a high heat flux heater for experimental uses where accurate measurements of surface temperatures and heat fluxes are extremely important. The heater designs presented allow for different testing applications; however, an emphasis is placed on heaters designed for use with spray cooling.