CHARACTERIZING PRESSURE REGULATOR PERFORMANCE
ABSTRACT Three popular brands of pressure regulators designed to be installed beneath individual sprinklers were tested to characterize their performance. To obtain consistent performance parameter characterization, a precise method of testing and analyzing the data had to be developed. These regulators can be characterized by four, straight line segments and a computer program to separate the line segments and perform linear regression on each of the segments was developed. The data collection method was found to profoundly affect the results of the characterization algorithm. A standard data collection and analysis procedure was developed and performance parameters for each of the regulators were determined. Two brands of tested regulators performed quite well and a third did not. The method for testing and characterizing the regulators is detailed, and the resulting parameters are reported. A method of separating the procedure variability from the regulator variability is also presented.