ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. Measuring water volume extracted from wells for irrigation is essential for its efficient use, having suitable precision-measuring devices contributes to apply appropriate allocations of water for crops. Therefore, water from aquifers will be used and controlled efficiently for groundwater sustainably. Available simple and inexpensive devices for measuring will contribute to preserve water resource in Mexico. Therefore, economic and easy to obtain components available in the market will be helpful to design a proper flow meter. This work presents a modest prototype flow meter device that consists of an orifice plate and electronic acquisition data for water wells. The device uses Motorola pressure sensors, microcontroller board Arduino Uno acquisition data and a single computer board Raspberry Pi B+ processor. A color LCD screen displays discharge and totalized volume values including a data table. To test the device, a specific facility with recirculating flow was assembled with a 0.5 HP pump and 2.54 cm PVC pipes with fittings. The importance of this device is that it was built with commercial, economic and available parts in the market. The flowrate variation was from 0.089 to 0.513 l/s, diameters ratios from β= 0.827 to 0.390. Data was saved in the Raspberry Pi or SD card memory. Displayed values were calibrated by volumetric and weight flow rate methods. Results of flowrate show very good matching with the real orifice plate flowmeter in wells with errors from 0.00065 to 00215.