Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74

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Agricultural Water Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat

An experimental and analytical study to analyze hydraulic behavior of

nozzle-type underdrains in porous media filters
G. Arbat a,∗ , T. Pujol b , J. Puig-Bargués a , M. Duran-Ros a , L. Montoro b ,
J. Barragán c , F. Ramírez de Cartagena a
a
Department of Chemical and Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Girona, C. de Maria Aurèlia Capmany, 61, 17071 Girona, Spain
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Construction, University of Girona, C. de Maria Aurèlia Capmany, 61, 17071 Girona, Spain
c
Department of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering, University of Lleida, Av. de l’Alcalde Rovira Roure, 191, 25198 Lleida, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Sand filters are commonly used to protect drip irrigation systems especially when large amounts of
Received 22 January 2013 organic contaminants are present. Moreover sand filters have the advantage of simplicity and large
Accepted 3 May 2013 capacities in comparison with other types of filters.
Available online 29 May 2013
The main objectives of this paper are firstly to develop an analytical equation to calculate the total
pressure drop in a sand filter taking into account the pressure drop in the underdrain and secondly to
Keywords:
validate this equation comparing its results with the obtained experimentally.
Microirrigation
An experimental study with a scaled commercial porous media filter was conducted with different
Head losses
Sand media filter
media bed depths and sand grain sizes. The results obtained with different media bed depths revealed
Packed bed that the Ergun equation underpredicted the pressure drop in the porous media filter.Subtracting the
Fluidization pressure drop caused by experiments with different sand heights shows that Ergun equation works well
Mathematical modeling for predicting the pressure drop in a region of the sand bed sufficiently far from the underdrain, but fails
Backwashing in the region immediately next to this element. To overcome this problem, a new model based on a set of
connected channels of the same diameter and progressive reduction of its number as the flow approaches
the nozzles has been developed. The results of the model were compared with the ones obtained in the
scaled sand filter as well as the ones obtained in commercial sand filters (Mesquita et al., 2012). The new
analytical equation improves the results of the Ergun equation to predict the pressure drop produced by
the entire sand bed by taking into account the effect of the underdrain (nozzle-type) and can be applied
to accurately predict pressure drop in the commercial sand filters commonly used in drip irrigation.
© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Media filters used in agriculture are usually packed in a pres-

Water quality is a major concern in the management of drip
irrigation systems as the solids contained in the irrigation water
can clog the small orifices and flow paths of the emitters. Thus fil-
tration is essential for the successful operation of micro-irrigation
systems because it helps to prevent emitter clogging (Ayars et al.,
2007). The three common filter types used in micro-irrigation
systems are screen, disk and media filters. Media filters are usu-
ally the standard method for protecting micro-irrigation systems
(Trooien and Hills, 2007) and are specially recommended when
large amount of organic particles contaminants are present (Haman
et al., 1994; Burt, 1996; Capra and Scicolone, 2004; Duran-Ros et al.,
2009).
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 972 418 459; fax: +34 972 418 399.
E-mail addresses: gerard.arbat@udg.edu, gerard.arbat@gmail.com (G. Arbat).
surized cylindrical tanks (with internal diameters ranging from 30
to 122 cm), disposed vertically and using sand as a filtering media
(Burt and Styles, 2007).
Head losses in a media filter are produced by the friction loss
due to the internal auxiliary elements of the filter container and
the resistance offered by the media (Testezlaf, 2008; Burt, 2010).
The prediction of the pressure drop produced by media filters in
clean condition has a practical interest as the designer must select
pump that overcomes the friction of a clean filter, plus an additional
loss due to accumulated dirt. When the total loss equals a pre-set
value, the filter will automatically backflush (Chang et al., 1999;
Clark et al., 2007; Mesquita et al., 2012). However, few studies ana-
lyze the effect of the auxiliary components of media filters on head
loss, which is related with water and energy consumption as well
as filter efficiency.
The backwashing is carried out reversing the direction of the
water flow in the filter tank. Thus the sand bed is fluidized drag-
ging out the dirt and debris from the filtering media. Flow velocity

0378-3774/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2013.05.004
 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74
during backwashing should not be too high as it may produce the
loss of sand particles from the filtering media. For this purpose it
is interesting to know the minimum fluidization velocity, which
can be computed from the procedure described in McCabe et al.
(2001).
The Ergun equation has been extensively used to predict head
losses in the filter media (Macdonald et al., 1979; McCabe et al.,
2001) since there is a general consensus on its accuracy. However,
its application is strictly valid in the limit of an infinitely extended
packed bed (Nemec and Levec, 2005; Choi et al., 2008). The bound-
ary condition at the sides of the packed bed, known as the wall
effect, has been studied by numerous investigations. These stud-
ies demonstrate that when the bed diameter is not significantly
larger than the particle diameter the friction produced by the wall
of the tank is not negligible, invalidating the applicability of Ergun
equation (Foumeny et al., 1993; Winterberg and Tsotsas, 2000; Choi
et al., 2008). The boundary condition near the filter underdrain also
violates the assumption of an infinitely extended packed bed made
by the Ergun equation. The capillary model based on the hydraulic
radius concept, the physical model in which is based the Ergun
equation, assumes that porous media consists of a set of parallel
identical channels (McCabe et al., 2001; Nemec and Levec, 2005).
This simplified model of the flow within the porous media may
fail to represent the actual flow occurring near the underdrain ele-
ments since the streamlines must converge near the passing area
through the slots of the underdrains. Indeed, different empirical
studies have shown that an important part of the total pressure
drop in commercial sand filters is due to the underdrain system
(Burt, 2010; Mesquita et al., 2012). The application of computa-
tional fluid dynamics (CFD) has been previously used to understand
the flow under the walls of a packed bed (Reddy and Joshi, 2010;
Riefler et al., 2012) and also in the nozzle-type underdrain of a sand
filter (Arbat et al., 2011). In this work a nozzle is defined as the
underdrain element formed by a pod with multiple slots that allows
water flow during filtration and backwashing regimes and prevents
losses of the filtering media. In commercial sand filters the nozzles
are distributed at the bottom of the sand bed.
In the latter case the authors showed the importance of the rela-
tionship between the passing area of the nozzles and the perforated
plate in the resulting pressure losses in order to prevent high flow
velocities in the sand bed. These authors also showed that when
this relationship decreases, most of the pressure drop is produced
in a tiny area inside the packed bed close to the underdrain. These
previous works reveal the importance of properly including the
underdrain system when developing models for predicting head
losses in packed beds. Nevertheless it must be noticed that the
application of CFD software to simulate the pressure drop in a sand
filter has strong limitations since it requires an enormous compu-
tational force to discretizate the complex geometries of the sand
filter.
At the knowledge of the authors there is not a published
analytical solution that can be applied to compute the head loss
produced by the underdrain of a porous media filter. In this work,
and based on the reduction of the effective filter diameter near the
underdrain, similar to the behavior of the streamlines in a conduit
as it approaches an orifice (Jeong and Choi, 2005), we develop
a new physical model of a porous media in order to predict the
pressure drop in the sand filter that takes into account the effect
of the nozzle-type underdrain. For this region of the filter, the new
analytical model consists of bundle of inclined channels of the
same equivalent diameter that are merging together, reducing the
number of available channels as the flow approaches the slots of
the nozzle.
The main objectives of the paper are: (i) to experimentally ana-
lyze the hydraulic behavior of the underdrains (nozzles) in a sand
filter, (ii) to present a new analytical equation to calculate the total
65
pressure drop in the sand filter (sand bed plus nozzles), and (iii) to
validate the model in comparison with experimentally measured
pressure drop data obtained in a scaled filter as well as in a com-
mercial one.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Experimental setup
A scaled sand filter was constructed based on a commercial sand
filter (Regaber, Parets del Vallès, Spain) of 500 mm internal diam-
eter and with a filtration surface of 1963 cm2 . The dimensions of
the scaled filter were chosen such that the Reynolds number cor-
responding to the circular tank of the filter was similar to that of
the commercial filter. Since the commercial filter had 12 nozzles
and the scaled filter 1 nozzle, the scaling factor for all lengths was
approximately 1/121/3 . Therefore the volume flowing through each
nozzle was the same in both filters. The dimension of the nozzle
and its passing area is described in detail in Section 2.3. The filter
had a 200 mm inner diameter and 757 mm total length. An inner
plate to fit the underdrain element (nozzle) and to support the sand
was welded at 140 mm above the bottom of the filter. During the
trials the pressure was measured at both inlet and outlet of the
sand filter by means of a Leo 2 (Keller, Winterthur, Switzerland)
digital manometer (±0.07% accuracy). The inlet and outlet filter
pipes could be easily switched in order to operate at either in the
filtration or in the backwash regimes. A centrifugal pump Prisma
20/4 M (ESPA, Banyoles, Spain) was used to suction the water from
a tank and to provide the pressure to the filter. The water flow was
measured using a volume accumulator 405 S (Sensus, London, UK).
A screen filter (Regaber, Parets del Vallès, Spain), 165 mm inside
diameter, 508 mm inlet and outlet pipes and 120 ␮m filtration level
was installed between the water tank and the sand filter in order
to prevent the entrance of particles to the sand filter and to retain
the sand during the backwashing of the sand filter. The scaled sand
filter and installation layout is depicted in Fig. 1.
2.2. Experimental procedure
The characteristic curve of the sand filter, i.e., the relationship
between superficial velocity (V0 ) and the pressure difference from
the filter inlet and outlet (Dp = pin − pout ) was obtained at the filtra-
tion and backwash regimes for different filter media configurations.
The same procedure was followed in each individual experiment.
Initially, we close the valve at the filter outlet until the inlet pressure
reached approximately 400 kPa. With this position of the valve, the
flow-rate corresponding to 120 s was calculated from the volume
accumulator readings and the minimum and maximum pressures
at the filter inlet and outlet (pin and pout ), corresponding to the
same period of time, were registered with the digital manometer.
After that, the procedure was repeated by opening the outlet valve
until the outlet pressure was reduced approximately 20 kPa. The
procedure was repeated several times until the outlet valve was
completely opened, and thus the sand filter characteristic curve
could be obtained. Each experiment was repeated 3 times to ensure
repeatability of the data.
2.3. Filter configurations
Two different sand particle sizes and three different sand bed
weights (or, equivalently, heights) have been tested in the scaled
sand. Filtration and backwashing regimes were tested (Table 1).
The commercial silica sand used in the experiments was sieved
in order to obtain a narrow range of sand sizes. This allowed
us to work with two different sand sizes (0.63–0.75 mm and
0.75–0.84 mm) whose main characteristics are shown in Table 2.
66 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74

Fig. 1. (a) Scaled sand filter, and (b) installation layout at the filtration configuration.

Table 1 (Regaber, Parets del Vallès, Spain) that was taken as a reference and,
Different filter configurations tested in the experiments with the scaled sand filter.
therefore, correspond to the nominal column height of the scaled
Flow regime Sand size Sand weight Media bed filter. The tests with 1.547 kg of sand with the nozzle gave a media
(mm) (kg) deptha (mm) bed depth of 20 mm over the mid height of the nozzle, which repre-
Filtration 0.63–0.75 1.547a 20.0 sents a very short sand column in relationship with the experiments
Filtration 0.63–0.75 3.860 70.1 with 13.530 kg of sand. The experiments with the short sand col-
Filtration 0.63–0.75 13.530 279.5 umn were designed to analyze the pressure drop generated in a tiny
Backwashing – None –
area over the underdrain, and to compare their results with those
Backwashing 0.63–0.75 13.530 279.5
Filtration 0.75–0.84 3.860 70.4 obtained in the proposed analytical model described in Section 3.
Filtration 0.75–0.84 13.530 280.4 Additionally, experiments with an intermediate media bed depth
a
Sand bed depths over the mid height of the nozzle. corresponding to 3.86 kg of sand were carried out. The difference
of the experimental pressure losses obtained in the experiments
with 13.530 and 3.860 kg of sand would allow to verify the pressure
Soyer and Akgiray (2009) showed that the sphericity s values
losses calculated with the Ergun equation in a 0.21 m long sand col-
in ten different silica sands ranged from 0.71 to 0.79. Currently it is
umn without the influence of the underdrain system. Similarly, the
considered that silica sand sphericity ranges from 0.70 to 0.80 (U.S.
difference of the pressure losses obtained with 13.530 and 1.547 kg
Department of Defense, 2003). In this study, and according with the
of sand would serve to know the pressure losses in a sand column
results showed in the literature, the sphericity for the 0.63–0.75 and
0.26 m long.
0.75–0.84 mm sand particle sizes was assumed to be 0.75.
The underdrain configuration was a nozzle of identical charac-
2.4. Fluidization velocities at the backflow regime
teristics than that of the commercial sand filter (Regaber, Parets
del Vallès, Spain) assembled on the orifice at the middle of the
The minimum fluidization velocity (V̄0M ) in the experiments
plate with 23 mm diameter that separates the water bottom cham-
with 13.530 and 3.860 kg of sand (sizes from 0.63 to 0.75 mm) was
ber from the porous media (Fig. 2a and b). The nozzle had 45
calculated from Eq. (1), according to McCabe et al. (2001):
slots 0.45 mm wide and 30 mm long with a total passing area of
2
607.5 mm2 . The passing area through the orifice was 415 mm2 . 150V̄0M (1 − εM ) 1.75V̄0M 1
+ = g(p − ) (1)
The width of the slots was measured using feeler gauges ranging S2 Dp2 ε3M S Dp ε3 M
0.05 mm between two consecutive sizes. The gauge of 0.45 mm was
the wider that passed through the slots and there were no differ- where  is the absolute fluid viscosity, s is the sphericity of the
ences of width between them. As the scaled filter has only one sand particles, Dp the particle diameter, g is the acceleration of grav-
nozzle and 200 mm internal diameter, each nozzle servers an area ity,  is the fluid density, p the density of the sand particles and
of 314 cm2 . εM the porosity at incipient fluidization, which was taken as the
The experiments with 13.530 kg of sand represent approxi- fixed bed porosity of the sand. In fluidization studies it is commonly
mately the 1/12 of the volume of sand in the commercial sand filter accepted that εM can be taken equal to the fixed bed porosity (e.g.,
Torrez Irigoyen and Giner, 2011). At this respect Formisani et al.
(1998) stated that the determination of εM is cumbersome and the
Table 2
Main characteristics of the two silica sand sizes used in the study. procedure may not provide a value significantly different from the
fixed bed porosity.
Grain sizes Average sand Bulk density Particle density Porosity (%)
According to McCabe et al. (2001) the porosity of the expanded
(mm) diameter (mm) (kg m−3 ) (kg m−3 )
bed (εE ) can be calculated as:
0.63–0.75 0.690 1470 (16) 2556 (0) 42.50 (0.00) L 
0.75–0.84 0.795 1462 (39) 2507 (6) 41.67 (1.44) M
εE = 1 − (1 − εM ) (2)
The number in brackets is the standard deviation of three different samples.
LE
 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74
Fig. 2. (a) Front view of the nozzle, (b) top view of the nozzle and (c) regions I and II in the sand bed.
where LM and εM are the bed height and porosity at incipient flu-
idization respectively and LE is the expanded bed height.
It was assumed that the maximum sand bed expansion would
correspond to the filter length, as in this case the sand would reach
the outlet of the filter. Under these conditions the expanded bed
height (LE ) was equal to the filter height and εE was calculated from
Eq. (2). The fluid velocity under this condition (V̄M ) can be calculated
from the empirical relationship proposed by Lewis et al. (1949):
 ε m V̄0
E
= (3)
εM V̄M
where the exponent m was estimated from the Reynolds number
at the minimum fluidization velocity using the graphical method
proposed in McCabe et al. (2001), which is based on the correlation
given by Leva (1959).
The fluid velocity V̄M was compared with the ranges of veloci-
ties during the backflow tests in order to verify if there were the
conditions to produce the outflow of sand. It must be noticed that
during each backflow experiment the sand that leaves the filter was
intercepted and collected by a screen filter (Fig. 1) and then dried
and weighted.
3. Nozzle type underdrain analytical model
In this section we develop an analytical model for predicting
the total pressure loss in sand filters that employ nozzles as the
underdrain system. In the next section, we show that this model
67
successfully predicts the energy losses as a function of the volumet-
ric flow rate (or, equivalently, the mean flow velocity) of the scaled
filter detailed in the previous section and, also, of a commercial
filter thoroughly studied by Mesquita et al. (2012).
Our analytical expression is based on a series pressure drop rep-
resentation from point 1 located at the inlet manometer to point
2 located at the exit manometer (Fig. 1). Thus, the measured total
pressure loss p12 follows:
p12 = ps + pns (4)
where ps and pns are the pressure losses through the porous
media and the non-porous media, respectively.
We divide pns into three main contributions
pns = pwi + po + pwe (5)
where pwi is the pressure drop from point 1 to the top of the sand
column (water inlet region), po is the pressure drop through the
nozzle orifice and pwe is the pressure drop from the exit of the
nozzle orifice to point 2 (water exit region). Note that these terms
may include losses from auxiliary elements (e.g., backflush valves).
On the other hand, the pressure loss through the sand bed ps
is divided into two terms
ps = psI + psII (6)
where psI,II correspond to the pressure losses in regions I and II
shown in Fig. 2c. In region I, the flow is uniform through the sand
bed and the pressure drop follows the Ergun equation. In region II,
68 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74
Fig. 3. Idealization of the pore space in the sand bed: (a) parallel channels in the
region I and (b) channel network in region II.
however, the flow is not uniform due to the influence of the nozzle.
Since the drain opening area of the nozzle is smaller than the filter
cross-sectional area, the fluid velocity within the sand increases as
it approaches the nozzle. This leads to large values of pressure losses
in a very small zone close to the nozzle. In this region, the Ergun
equation does not provide reasonable predictions. This effect was
already noted by means of detailed CFD simulations of a commer-
cial filter in Arbat et al. (2011). Here, we develop a new expression
for determining the contribution of the psII term based on a gen-
eralization of the idealized representation of the porous media
employed in McCabe et al. (2001). The porous media is assumed
Fig. 4. Experimental and Ergun’s predictions of the pressure drop in the sand bed (p, kPa) for different superficial velocities (V0 , m h−1 ). The 0.21 m sand bed height (L)
labeled as “measured” comes from the subtraction of measured data of pressure losses for two amounts of sand volumes in order to cancel out the effects of auxiliary elements
and only retain the effect of the media bed depth. The same applies for the sand bed height (L) of 0.26 m. The direction of the flow is from the top of the porous media to the
nozzle.
of being formed by inter-connected cylindrical channels of equiv-
alent diameter Deq through which water flows (Fig. 3a). Analytical
expressions for all the terms shown in Eqs. (4)–(6) are derived in
Appendix.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Zone of influence of the nozzle
The pressure drop in a sand bed column 0.21 m long filled with
sand with size ranging from 0.63 to 0.75 mm was calculated as the
difference between the pressure drop measured with 13.530 kg and
that with 3.860 kg of the indicated sand sizes (Table 1). Similarly,
it was calculated the pressure drop for the same sand bed height
with 0.75–0.84 mm sand size. The pressure drop in a sand bed col-
umn 0.26 m long filled with 0.63–0.75 mm sand size was calculated
doing the difference between the pressure drop measured with
13.530 kg and that with 1.547 kg. Since experimental data were
not obtained at regular intervals of superficial velocity, the previ-
ous differences were obtained after fitting a quadratic polynomial
equation to the pressure drop as a function of the superficial veloc-
ity. In all the cases the goodness of fit between the measurements
and adjusted values was very high (R2 > 0.996).
Thus, doing the difference of the pressure drop between two
independent experiments, and at the same flow rate, the pressure
losses in the auxiliary elements of the filter, as well as the ones
produced in the lower part of the sand bed close to the nozzle cancel
out. Therefore the pressure drop can be compared with the one
predicted with Ergun equation, which is applicable to predict the
pressure losses in the sand bed (McCabe et al., 2001).
Fig. 4 shows that the pressure drop predicted with the Ergun
equation follows a similar trend than that obtained in the experi-
ments although it slightly over-predicts the pressure drop for the
three cases. In both experimental and Ergun’s predictions, the lower
pressure drop was produced by the sand column of 0.21 m height
and the bigger grain size (0.75–0.84 mm), followed by the sand col-
umn of the same height filled with grain sizes from 0.63 to 0.75 mm.
The greatest pressure drop was produced by the longer sand bed
(L = 0.26 m) filled with 0.63–0.75 mm sand size. As generally admit-
ted Ergun equation is suitable to predict pressure drop in infinitely
 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74 69

Fig. 5. Comparison of the experimental pressure losses at different flow rates with the ones predicted using the proposed model and Ergun equation. (a) Results corresponding
to the experiment with 13.530 kg of 0.63–0.75 mm sand diameter. (b) Results corresponding to the experiment with 3.860 kg of the same diameters. In both figures the direction
of the flow is from the top of the porous media to the nozzle.

extended packed bed, especially when the porosity range is rather
narrow (0.35 < ε < 0.55), the bed is made up of similar sized particles
and the flow rates are moderate (Nemec and Levec, 2005), which
was the case of the sand filter experiments presented here.
Applying the model described in Section 3, the sand bed is
responsible of most of the pressure losses, roughly 90%, of which
approximately 40% of the total pressure losses are produced in the
region ranging from the top of the sand bed to a short distance
from the nozzle (region I) and 60% in a very tiny region at the bot-
tom of the sand column, close to the nozzle slots (region II). The
extension of region II, where most of the pressure losses are pro-
duced, is initially unknown but the experiment with 1.547 kg of
sand, where the sand column was as short as 2.5 mm over the top
of the nozzle, would confirm that it is restricted to a very tiny area
at the bottom of the sand column. Indeed, the experimental results
corresponding to a 0.26 m sand column (Fig. 4), obtained by sub-
tracting the measured values of the 13.530 kg case with those of the
1.547 kg of sand, do not show any abrupt increase of the pressure
drop compared with the one obtained with a 0.21 m sand column
and follows the good agreement with Ergun equation. Therefore it
is experimentally confirmed that the length of region II is less than
the 2.5 mm over the top of the nozzle.
4.2. Scaled filter
The model has been applied to simulate pressure losses at the
filtration regime in a scaled filter that includes a single nozzle.
When Ergun equation was applied to predict the total head losses
in the sand filter filled with 13.530 kg of sand with size in the range
0.63–0.75 mm, the pressure drop compared with the experimental
data was clearly underpredicted (dotted line in Fig. 5a). Therefore,
we include the effect of accessories to the Ergun equation in order
to take into account the pressure drop produced in the water inlet
(pwi ), orifice (po ) and water exit (pwe ), as described in Sec-
tion 3. The results, however, still underpredicted the experimental
values (see the dashed line in Fig. 5a).
When pressure drop was predicted with the proposed model
(solid line) it was assumed that the region with a uniform flow
behavior in the porous media (region I) ranges from the top of the
sand bed to the top of the nozzle (Lu = 0.262 m). Thus, region II in
70 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74
the sand bed is limited to the distance between the top of the noz-
zle to the center of the nozzle slot (Ln − Lu = 0.0175 m). Note that
the length of the non-uniform flow is limited to the center of the
nozzle slot because this is the mean length of the streamlines from
the ending of region II to the nozzle exit (it must be noticed that
the slots are arranged vertically and the water can cross them at
different heights, but the mean travel length taking into account all
the possible pathways will correspond to 0.0175 m). The assump-
tion that the ending of region I reach the top of the nozzle leads to
accept a non-uniform behavior in a region very close to the noz-
zle only. This assumption was confirmed in the previous section
when comparing Ergun equation for different media bed depths
with experimental data.
The pressure drop predicted with the proposed model was very
close to the experimental data (closed circles), especially when
the superficial velocity was greater than 70 m h−1 (Fig. 5a). As
stated above, this figure also shows the results for a simplified case
(dashed line) where Ergun equation plus accessories were take into
account but the nozzle effect was neglected, so region II in the sand
bed was not taken into consideration and, therefore, the pressure
drop through the porous media was exclusively modeled by Ergun
equation. This case cannot explain the behavior of data, especially
at higher values of the volumetric flow rate, where the proposed
model clearly improves the pressure drop prediction.
Fig. 5b shows the case for 3.860 kg of sand and the results
are similar to those obtained with the 13.530 kg of sand. Thus,
the proposed model predicts well the experimental pressure drop
for superficial velocities greater than 70 m h−1 . The Ergun equa-
tion itself underpredicts the experimental pressure drop for all the
range of superficial velocities. The pressure drop obtained adding
the effect of the accessories to the ones obtained with Ergun equa-
tion is close to the experimental results for the lower range of
superficial velocities, from 54 to 72 m h−1 .
Similar results (not shown in the figures) were obtained in all
the other tests: 1.547 kg of sand with size ranging from 0.63 to
0.75 mm, 3.860 kg of sand with size ranging from 0.75 to 0.84 mm
and 13.530 kg of sand with size ranging from 0.75 to 0.84 mm
(Table 1).
4.3. Commercial filter
In a very recent study, Mesquita et al. (2012) have analyzed the
effects of the sand particle size and sand bed depth on the pressure
losses through three different commercial filters. These three filters
had different underdrain systems: manifold (F1 type), disk-type (F2
type) and nozzle (F3 type). The latter fits the type of sand filters here
analyzed. For the F3 type they experimentally obtained the head
losses as a function of the volumetric flow rate for three different
types of grain sizes (G1–G3) each one used in three different bed
depths (H1–H3). Additional technical details of this F3 type filter
can be found in Mesquita et al. (2012).
In order to determine the zone of influence of the nozzle, we
performed the same analysis as that carried out in Section 4.1 but
applied to the data shown in Mesquita et al. (2012). For each grain
type, we plotted the difference of the head losses for two different
bed depths (Hi and Hj ) as a function of the superficial velocity. As
already discussed in Section 4.1, we expected that this difference
would match the value predicted by the Ergun equation when using
a sand bed height equal to the difference of sand bed heights Hi − Hj .
However, only the data for the grain size labeled as G1 in Mesquita
et al. (2012) showed a reasonable behavior, since plots for other
grain types did not show a monotonic increase as a function of the
superficial velocity. Such unexpected behavior may be caused by
the accumulation effect of sand in some regions, already detected
in Mesquita et al. (2012), which may vary the effective sand bed
height. In few tests of the scaled filter analyzed in the previous
Fig. 6. Results predicted by the Ergun equation and our analytical model for the
filter studied in Mesquita et al. (2012). For three different sand bed depths, lines
correspond to the experimental values of the pressure drop as a function of the
superficial velocity (Mesquita et al., 2012), open symbols represent the values pre-
dicted by our model and open symbols with a cross correspond to the prediction of
the Ergun equation when using a sand bed height equal to the whole sand depth.
section we also detected this phenomenon but we carefully level
off the surface at the end of each experiment. This hydrodynamic
effect is beyond the scope of the analytical model introduced in
Section 3, so we only use the G1 grain size data of Mesquita et al.
(2012).
Results predicted by our analytical model for the filter studied in
Mesquita et al. (2012) are shown in Fig. 6. Since we ignore the details
of the experimental set up employed in Mesquita et al. (2012) (i.e.,
exact location of the manometers, lengths and diameters of inlet
and exit pipes, etc.), the pns term in Eq. (4) is not taken into con-
sideration. This implies that our model would, in principle, predict
a slightly higher pressure drop than that shown in Fig. 6.
The values of the parameters required for evaluating the ps
terms in Eq. (6) were extracted from the published data in Mesquita
et al. (2012) (with the volumetric flow rate divided by the number of
nozzles since ps makes reference to a single underdrain element).
Only two additional data not found in Mesquita et al. (2012) were
needed: the sphericity of the sand and the height of region II. The
former is chosen equal to 0.75 in agreement with Section 2.3. The
latter assumes a height equal to 20.6 mm, which, in consistency
with the methodology employed in the scaled filter, corresponds
to the vertical distance from the upper part of the nozzle where the
slot begins to the center of gravity of the slot open area.
Fig. 6 shows a remarkable agreement between our analytical
prediction and the experimental data, especially at higher sand bed
depths. In contrast, the Ergun equation applied to the whole sand
bed height gives substantially lower values than the observed ones
since ignores the influence of region II. This confirms the validity of
our analytical approximation for predicting the pressure losses in
commercial filters with a nozzle type underdrain system.
4.4. Conditions at the backflow regime
As shown in Fig. 7 the pressure losses without sand and with
different sand bed weights (3.860 and 13.530 kg) were minimal
since at the backflow regime the sand bed was fluidized and
therefore the amount of sand within the filter has little influence
in the pressure losses.
The minimum fluidization velocity (V̄0M ), obtained from Eq.
(1), was 12.2 m h−1 that was overcome in all the backflow experi-
ments. The difference in the mean velocities was minimal for the
experiments without sand and the ones with 3.860 and 13.530 kg
of sand, being their average values and standard deviations of:
 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74
Fig. 7. Pressure drop (p) for different velocities at the backflow mode during the different trials without sand and with 3.86 kg and 13.530 kg of sand (0.63–0.75 mm).
95.4 ± 22.7 m h−1 , 94.7 ± 20.5 m h−1 and 99.0 ± 18.7 m h−1 respec-
tively. Therefore the mean velocities as well as the minimum
velocity during the trials were well above the minimum fluidization
velocity. As the sand particles were suspended the pressure losses
for the experiments without sand and for the experiments with
3.860 and 13.530 kg of sand were very similar.
The porosities (εE ) at the maximum bed expanded conditions
(i.e., the case where the expanded sand bed reached the outlet of
the filter) for 13.530 and 3.860 kg of sand, calculated from Eq. (2)
were respectively 0.7253 and 0.9167 and the corresponding veloc-
ities, calculated from Eq. (3), were 83.52 m h−1 and 194.40 m h−1 .
The velocities during the experiment with 13.530 kg of sand were
greater than the one computed with Eq. (3), while during the exper-
iment with 3.860 kg of sand the velocity was always less than
194.40 m h−1 (Fig. 7). Therefore in the experiment with 13.530 kg of
sand it would be expected that part of the sand bed would be drag
from the filter to the outlet. This was confirmed at the end of the
three replications of the experiment since 560 g of sand were recov-
ered in the screen filter. On the other hand, the screen filter was
completely free of sand after the three replications of the experi-
ment with 3.860 kg, as it was expected. At this respect it can be con-
cluded that Eqs. (2) and (3), applied as described in Section 2.4 can
be applied to predict the maximum allowed velocity at the backflow
regime (V̄M ) in order to prevent sand outflow from the filter.
5. Conclusions
The Ergun equation with a shape factor (sphericity) is well
suited to predict the pressure drop produced by an infinitely
long packed bed. Nevertheless, the idealization of parallel chan-
nels, which is the physical model that supports Ergun equation,
does not match the hydraulic behavior in the lower part of
a filter since there exists an underdrain element (nozzle). The
experiments carried out confirmed that the flow through the
porous media is not uniform near the nozzle where stream-
lines converge toward its slots. In the idealized new analytical
model here presented, this effect is implemented by a reduc-
tion of the number of channels available as well as a reduction
of the effective filter diameter. The pressure drop predicted with
the proposed model clearly improves Ergun’s predictions, since
remarkably fits experimental data, especially at relatively high val-
ues of the superficial velocity. The analytical model presented in
this paper can be applied to predict the pressure drop produced
71
by commercial sand filters using nozzle-type underdrains, which
are currently used in the filtration units used in microirrigation
systems.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Spanish
Ministry of Education and Science for its financial support of this
study through grants CGL2009-09342/BTE, CGL2008-02832/BTE,
FIS-2009-13050, to the Autonomous Government of Catalonia for
grant 2009-SGR-374. The authors would also like to thank Sergi
Saus, Jordi Vicens, Regaber and the Municipality of Celrà for their
help in carrying out this investigation.
Appendix A. [{(Appendix)}]
Here we derive the analytical expression for estimating the pres-
sure difference measured by the manometer at the inlet (point 1)
and that at the outlet (point 2) of the filter (Fig. 1). Eq. (4) evalu-
ates this total pressure drop p12 in terms of sand plus non-sand
contributions ps + pns whose analytical expressions are detailed
below.
For all these regions, we take into consideration both friction
losses for a length of pipe L and local losses due to sudden expan-
sions and contractions.
Pressure losses due to friction effects, major losses (pf ), are
expressed in terms of the Darcy–Weisbach equation (White, 2011):
L  2 L 8
pf = f v = f 5 2 Q2 (A.1)
D2 D 
where v is the mean flow velocity computed as v = Q/(D2 /4), D is
the pipe diameter along the length L and f is the friction factor. The
latter is a function of the pipe relative roughness (here assumed
smooth) and of the Reynolds number:
vD
Re = (A.2)

where  and  are the fluid density and absolute viscosity, respec-
tively.
72 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74

On the other hand, local (or minor) losses (pk ) are obtained loss occurring in the water region inside the filter, pwe2 corre-
from (White, 2011): sponding to the local (minor) loss at the contraction zone where the
filter ends and the exit pipe starts and pwe3 corresponding to the
 2 8
pK = K v = K 2 4 Q2 (A.3) friction (major) loss occurring within the exit pipe until reaching
2  D
the position of the exit manometer. The last term pwe3 is equal
where K is the minor loss coefficient. to pwi1 Eq. (A.4) since the inlet and exit pipes are equal. Simi-
larly to pwi3 , pwe1 follows Eq. (A.4) with DF0 instead of d and
A.1. Non porous media L = 0.141 m. On the other hand, the minor loss pwe2 related to the
sudden contraction reads (White, 2011)
From Eq. (5), the pressure drop in the region with no sand pns 
is expressed in terms of three contributions: pwi , po and pwe . d2 8
pwe2 = 0.42 1− 2
Q2 (A.7)
DF0  2 d4
A.1.1. pwi – water inlet
Three contributions to the pressure drop from the
A.2. Porous media
inlet manometer to the top of the sand bed pwi
(=pwi1 + pwi2 + pwi3 ) are assumed. The first one pwi1
Based on McCabe et al. (2001), we assume that water in the
corresponds to the major losses due to friction effects in the inlet
porous media flows through n non-connected cylindrical channels
pipe of diameter d = 25.4 mm. Since the volumetric flow rate is
of length z and equivalent diameter Deq . Two geometrical con-
of the order of Q ≈ 10−3 m3 s−1 , the Reynolds number (computed
using Eq. (A.2)) at the inlet conduit is Re ≈ 5 × 104 . This means that  to this2 model.
ditions apply  First, the water volume inside the
channels Vc = nzDeq /4 must be equal to the water volume in the
the flow is turbulent and, since, 4000 < Re < 105 , the friction factor f  
may be expressed in terms of the Blausius formula f = 0.316 Re−1/4 . porous media εVF where ε is the sand porosity and VF = zDF2 /4
Therefore, Eq. (A.1) for this particular case reads is the volume of the filter occupied by sand. At a given vertical slab
of thickness dz, the condition Vc = εVF reads
pwi1 = 0.241Ld−19/4 1/4 3/4 Q 7/4 (A.4) 2
Deq DF2
ndz = ε dz (A.8)
where L = 95 mm is the length of the inlet pipe from the manometer 4 4
to the entry into the filter.
The second geometrical condition equals the wetted surface
The second contribution to pwi corresponds to the sudden
area of the n channels Sc (=Deq nz) with the sand surface area Ss .
expansion from the inlet pipe of diameter d = 25.4 mm to the fil-
Note that Ss = rp Vs with rp = Sp /Vp the surface to volume ratio of a
ter of diameter DF0 = 200 mm. Following White (2011), the minor
2
2 sand particle and Vs (=(1 − ε)VF ) the volume of sand. Since sand
loss coefficient reads K = 1 − d2 /DF0 that substituted into Eq. particles are not totally spherical, rp = Sp /Vp = 6/(Dp ) with Dp the
(A.3) gives particle diameter. At a given vertical slab of thickness dz, this second
 2 geometrical condition reads
d2 8
pwi2 = 1− Q2 (A.5) DF2
2
DF0  2 d4 6
Deq ndz = (1 − ε) dz (A.9)
Dp 4
Finally, the third contribution to pwi , namely pwi3 , takes into
account the friction loss of the water-only region inside the filter From Eq. (A.8), the number of channels n satisfies
above the porous media. Since the Reynolds number for the water-  2
DF
only region inside the filter is ReF = 6366 for Q ≈ 10−3 m3 s−1 , pwi3 n=ε (A.10)
follows Eq. (A.4) with DF0 instead of d and L equal to the height of Deq
water within the filter above the sand bed. We point out that, for and, from Eq. (A.9), the equivalent diameter is:
simplicity, we also use Eq. (A.1) for Q ≈ 0.5 × 10−3 m3 s−1 although
in this case Re < 4000. 2 ε
Deq = Dp (A.11)
3 (1 − ε)
A.1.2. po – orifice The Reynolds number (Eq. (A.2)) in the channels is
After the sand, the water flows into the nozzle and goes Rec = vc Deq / where the channel mean fluid velocity follows
through the orifice of diameter Do = 23 mm and length h = 10 mm. vc = Qc /(Deq2 /4) assuming a total volumetric flow rate Q equally
Since h/DO > 0.125, the orifice may be considered as a short tube divided into the n channels (Qc = Q/n). This implies that vc = v/ε
(Jankowski et al., 2008) and the pressure drop po through this where v is the mean fluid velocity in sand-free conditions (i.e.,
element may be obtained as a series representation of major and v = Q/(D2 /4)).
minor losses (Jankowski et al., 2008) With the above, the Reynolds number in the channels Rec =
  2/3(1 − ε)−1 Dp DF−1 ReF . Since Dp /DF  1, Rec  ReF and the flow
h 8Q 4 1 − ˇ4 8Q 4
po = f + (A.6) regime within the sand bed is clearly laminar. Therefore, the pres-
4
Do 2 Do Cd2 2 sure drop due to friction effects pf in a channel follows Poiseuille
equation:
where for the major loss, f is the friction factor, and f h/Do equals
to 64 h/(ReDo ) + 36/Re + 1.8 Re(Re − 8)/(256 + Re2 ), being Re the vc  4Q
pf = 32 dz = 32 dz (A.12)
Reynolds number in the orifice (Jankowski et al., 2008), and for the 2
Deq 4 n
Deq
minor loss, ˇ = Do /DF0 = 0.115 and a discharge coefficient Cd = 1.6
(White, 2011). that from Eqs. (A.10) and (A.11) reads,

 4Q (1 − ε)2
A.1.3. pwe – water exit pf = 72 dz (A.13)
2 Dp2 DF2 ε3
Finally, the pressure drop from the exit of the orifice to the
manometer located at the exit pipe pwe is divided into three Minor losses pm are also taken into account by assuming that
main contributions: pwe1 corresponding to the friction (major) these n channels through which water flows in the porous media
 G. Arbat et al. / Agricultural Water Management 126 (2013) 64–74 73

are not straight but made by m sudden expansions and contrac- expansion (Ka ≈ 1.42; White, 2011). However, this discrepancy is of
tions due to the sand shape. We assume that these minor losses minor importance in region I, where the flow is laminar and minor
are found at regular intervals equal to the sand particle effective losses computed with Eq. (A.17) accounts only for a 10% of psI .
diameter Dp , so for a channel of length z, m = z/(Dp ) and, at a slab
of thickness dz, Eq. (A.3) reads A.2.2. Region II
In region II, psII is also the sum of major plus minor losses. Also
 2 dz  16Q 2
dz
pm = Ka v = Ka (A.14) as in region I, the major losses pfsII are obtained after integrating
2 c Dp 4 n2 D
2 2 Deq p
Eq. (A.12) (or, equivalently, Eq. (A.13)) from z = Lu (the end of region
where Ka is the minor loss coefficient for sudden expansion and I) to z = Ln (the end of region II located at the nozzle entry). However,
contraction. as discussed above, the number of channels n available in region II
Eq. (A.14) expressed in terms of the total volumetric flow rate Q decreases as the flow approaches the slots of the nozzle so n is a
is function of z. Therefore, the major losses pfsII from Eq. (A.12) are

Ln
 16Q 2 dz Q 1
pm = Ka (A.15) pfsII = 128 dz (A.18)
2 2 D4 ε2 Dp 4
Deq n
F Lu
The flow through the porous media is not expected to be We point out that from Eq. (A.10), a decrease in n is equiva-
uniform, especially near the nozzle where streamlines converge lent to reduce the effective filter diameter DF . For simplicity, we
toward its slots. In our idealized model this effect implies a reduc- assume a linear decrease of the equivalent filter diameter DF on z
tion of the number of channels n available or, equivalently from with DF = DF0 at z = Lu and DF = DF1 at z = Ln . Thus, substituting Eq.
Eq. (A.10), a reduction on the effective filter diameter DF (Fig. 3). (A.10) into Eq. (A.18) and integrating leads to
Indeed, such a reduction in the effective filter diameter is simi-
lar to the behavior observed for the streamlines in a conduit as it  4Q (1 − ε)2 DF0
pfsII = 72 (Ln − Lu ) (A.19)
approaches an orifice (e.g., Jeong and Choi, 2005), where recircula- 2 Dp2 2
DF0 ε3 DF1
tion zones, not involved in the main stream, arise attached to the
inner corners. Therefore, we divide the sand bed into two regions. which, per unit length, is nothing but Eq. (A.16) multiplied by
Region I ranges from the top of the sand bed (at z = 0) to a distance DF0 /DF1 . For the nozzle of the scaled filter, the effective filter
very close to the nozzle (at z = Lu ) and is characterized by a uniform diameter DF1 at z = Ln corresponds to the equivalent diame-
flow with DF constant (=0.2 m). Region II ranges from the end of ter for the open area of the nozzle Sn (=607.5 × 10−6 m) being
region I (at z = Lu ) to the end of the sand column at the nozzle slots DF1 = (4Sn /)1/2 = 0.028 m, so DF0 /DF1 ≈ 7.2.
with non-uniform flow (i.e., with DF variable). Minor losses pmsII are obtained after integrating Eq. (A.15)
Following Eq. (6), the total pressure drop in the porous media from z = Lu to z = Ln ,
(ps ) is the sum of the pressure losses in region I (psI ), plus those

Ln
 16Q 2 1
in region II (psII ), being calculated as follows. In order that the pmsII = Kb 4 D
dz (A.20)
2 2 Deq p Lu
n2
model can be applied to make predictions, the length of regions I
and II must be previously known. For this purpose, and consistently where Kb is the minor loss coefficient for a T junction.
with the experimental results obtained with different media bed Substituting Eq. (A.10) into Eq. (A.20) and assuming a linear
depths, as previously exposed in Section 4.1, the boundary of region decrease for the effective filter diameter as in Eq. (A.19), Eq. (A.20)
I was limited at the top of the nozzle. gives
 2

A.2.1. Region I  16Q 2 (Ln − Lu ) 1 DF0 DF0 DF0
pmsII = Kb + +1 (A.21)
In region I, psI is the sum of major pfsI plus minor losses 2 2 D4 ε2 Dp 3 DF1 2
DF1 DF1
F0
pmsI . The major losses term pfsI is obtained after integrating Eq.
that reduces to Eq. (A.17) for DF0 = DF1 , as it should.
(A.13) from z = 0 to z = Lu , giving
In addition to major losses pfsII and minor losses pmsII , we
 4Q (1 − ε)2 have also a third contribution to the pressure drop psII3 in region
pfsI = 72 Lu (A.16) II that consists of local losses related to the connections needed
2 Dp2 DF2 ε3
to reduce the number of water channels from n0 at z = Lu (i.e., at
where  is the tortuosity that accounts for the fact that channels DF = DF0 ) to n1 at the nozzle slot z = Ln (i.e., at DF = DF1 ). For simplicity,
are not totally straight. For a value of  = 150/72 ≈ 2, Eq. (A.16) we assume that connections occur by pairs at q regular intervals,
corresponds to the Blake–Kozeny equation for describing the pres- so n0 /n1 = 2q . From the values above, q ≈ 6 and, from Eq. (A.3),
sure losses of a flow in a porous media at low Reynolds numbers
(MacDonald et al., 1991).  16Q 2 q 1
psII3 = Kb (A.22)
Minor losses pmsI follow by integrating Eq. (A.13) from z = 0 to 2 ε2 2 i=1 D4
Fi
z = Lu ,
with DFi the value of the effective filter diameter at level
 16Q 2 Lu zi = Lu + (Ln − Lu )i/q for i = 1, 2, . . ., q and Kb is on the order of 0.5
pmsI = Ka (A.17)
2 2 D4 ε2 Dp (White, 2011).
F
The previous derivation has applied numerical values corre-
Note that Eq. (A.17) for Ka = 3.5(1 − ε)/ε is nothing but the sponding to the scaled filter. It is straightforward to obtain it with
Burke–Plummer equation for predicting the pressure drop in a data of any commercial filter with known geometrical slots, as it has
porous media at high Reynolds numbers (McCabe et al., 2001). been done in order to compare with experimental data in Section
Indeed, Eqs. (A.16) and (A.17) with  = 150/72 and Ka = 3.5(1 − ε)/ε 4.3.
correspond to the Ergun equation for estimating the pressure losses
in porous media (Macdonald et al., 1979).
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