Question:hard

A tractor-mounted boom sprayer carries a horizontal row of 12 identical flat-fan nozzles (spray angle \(110^{\circ}\)). To achieve uniform coverage, the required lateral overlap between adjacent nozzle footprints at the target plane is 30% of a single nozzle footprint. Boom height is 0.60 m above the target plane.
The tractor is set to travel at a theoretical forward speed of 8 km/h. Wheel slip is 8% and the field efficiency is 75%. All other losses are neglected.
The total time (in minutes) required to spray a 25 ha field is ________. (Rounded off to the nearest integer)

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Find the footprint width from the spray angle and boom height, reduce it by the overlap to get nozzle spacing, then compute effective field capacity.
Updated On: Aug 6, 2026
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Correct Answer: 189

Solution and Explanation

Step 1: Get the actual travel speed in metres per minute.
Slip cuts the theoretical speed of 8 km/h by 8%, giving an actual speed $V_a = 8 \times 0.92 = 7.36$ km/h.
Converting, $V_a = \dfrac{7.36 \times 1000}{60} = 122.7$ m/min.

Step 2: Get the swath width covered by the boom.
Half the spray angle is $55^{\circ}$, so one nozzle's footprint at 0.60 m height spans $w = 2(0.60)\tan 55^{\circ} = 1.714$ m.
Since adjacent footprints must overlap by 30%, nozzles sit $0.70 \times 1.714 = 1.200$ m apart, and 12 of them give a swath of $12 \times 1.200 = 14.40$ m.

Step 3: Get the ground area covered per minute.
Raw coverage rate $= W \times V_a = 14.40 \times 122.7 = 1766.9\ m^2/min$.
Only 75% of this counts as useful field work because of turns and overlaps in field efficiency, so the effective rate is $1766.9 \times 0.75 = 1325.2\ m^2/min$.

Step 4: Convert the field size and divide.
$25$ ha $= 250000\ m^2$.
\[ t = \frac{250000}{1325.2} = 188.7\ min \]

Final Answer:
Rounding to the nearest minute, spraying the field takes \[ \boxed{189\ minutes} \]
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