DEPIVOT - A Software Package to Design and Evaluate Center-pivot Systems

This paper presents a simulation model aimed at center-pivot design and support assessing the performance of systems under operation: DEPIVOT (Design and Evaluation of center PIVOT). The software code was developed in Visual Basic and includes an Access database. DEPIVOT allows considering performance criteria for design and to iteratively search better system solutions. The model has two main components: A. the design of new systems and B. the evaluation of operating systems. The first component starts with the agronomic design aiming the calculation of the system flow rate; this is followed by the hydraulic design: (a) computes friction head losses along the lateral; (b) the creation of the sprinkler chart; and (c) the validation of the sprinkler chart. The second component requires field data to calculate performance indicators, such as distribution uniformity (DU) and the coefficient of uniformity (CU).