Performance of No-Filter Smooth Drain Pipe on Clayey Loam

Abstract

The performance of smooth drainage pipes fitted with no-filter material as against those with nylon, rice husks and cowpea chaffs were investigated. The study was conducted on a clayey loam during the 2005, 2006 and 2007 rainy seasons.  The experimental design was completely randomized design replicated three times.  The treatments applied include drains installed with cowpea chaff, rice husks, no-filter and nylon drainage filter materials.  The filter materials were compressed using locally available materials and installed manually to a soil depth of 25 cm using ASABE Standards (2006). The drainage area was about 180 m2 (0.432 ha) with a buffer zone of 1m allowed in between the plots.  The slope along the length was 3.90 % and across the length was 1.63 %.  The soil physical characteristics like the texture, moisture content, field capacity and bulk density were determined.  Properties such as load at peak, strain at peak, energy at peak, load at yield and energy at yield were highest for sand samples collected from no-filter treated pipes with recorded average values of 958.5 N, 36.53 Nm, 22.45 %, 195.63 N, and 0.93 Nm respectively.  Nylon filter pipes gave the highest strain at yield recording an average value of 8.54 mm.  Rice filter samples recorded the highest deformation at yield value of 9.29 mm. Results of the drainage yield showed that during the 2005 rainy season, plots treated with no-filter material gave the highest discharge of 56.3 l/day, while plots with rice husk gave a discharge of 44.8 l/day. For the 2006 rainy season, plots treated with no-filter material gave the highest discharge of 500.4 l/day, while plots with bean chaff gave the lowest discharge of 60 l/day.  For the 2007 rainy season, for first 11 days plots treated with no-filter recorded the highest amount of discharge recording the highest value of 110.8 l/day while plots treated with rice husk gave the highest drainage yield for the remaining 19 days recording the highest amount of 120.9l/day. The results showed that for the same rainfall amount and pattern, plot with rice husk gave the highest drainage yield of 148.9l/day, while plot with control (no-envelope) gave the lowest drainage yield of 99.4 l/day. The plots treated with nylon-synthetic material produced the best water quality because it was free of debris, smell and the discharge was clear, while that of the others were loaded with debris and discharge has a foul smell.  The study shows that drainpipes can be installed successfully in the area under study without using filter material because of the high drainage discharge and also because there is no decay of material with time.