Retrofitting Sprinkler Systems for Suppressing Dust Generated by Moving Vehicles Inside Farms

Fugitive dust is one of the well known problems in agriculture and it affects both humans and machine producing quality. Dust problems can seriously cause harmful diseases to workers and ruin expensive equipments. In this study, a dust formation generated in open environment by vehicles was analyzed on unpaved roads. Formed dust was measured by calculating total forces on the PM10 (airborne particles smaller than 10 mm) of dust particles, such as air velocity, gravity forces and air turbulence generated by the moving vehicle. The water fogger nozzle discharge was measured to determine the approximate droplets quantity in the air. The foggers were used to suppress the generated dust in an open environment via installing a proposed automatic suppression system which opens automatically when vehicles pass under the system. The relationship between water droplet speed and ability of collecting fugitive dust showed that high air temperature above 40°C and wind speed above 10 m s−1 have negative effects on the system's ability of collecting dust due to evaporation of small radius droplets and/or drifting water droplets away from the effective area. The overall system efficiency was found to be 85% and the proposed dust suppression system was found to be a satisfying solution for reducing fugitive dust hazards.