Industrial

High Efficiency Crop Sprayer

A producer of next-generation agriculture equipment approached SGW Designworks for help with equipment design and engineering of its advanced spray system.

Client:

GenZ Technology

Services provided:

Product Design

Prototyping

Mechanical Engineering

Date:

2016

project summary

SGW Designworks iterated GenZ’s existing sprayer design to improve folding mechanisms, increase airflow, and simplify assembly.

Challenge

Product Vision

The innovative crop spray system has an integrated suction system to recover over-spray, reducing the amount of chemical needed to achieve the desired effect.

The company’s innovative sprayer systems take a decades-old process and make it safer and more efficient while helping save farmers money by reducing waste. GenZ had developed several initial working prototypes of its advanced pesticide spray system, but the system needed to be redesigned to achieve its intended performance.

Specific design changes and optimizations would need to reduce production costs and to improve specific functionality — including addressing specific vulnerabilities in the product design, defining better folding mechanisms, and optimizing airflow through the spray system.

delivery

Final Outcome

Multiple prototype and testing cycles led to the optimal design and feature set of GenZ's innovative spray system.

As part of the equipment engineering effort, SGW Designworks used Finite Element Analysis for GenZ Technology to help identify possible problem areas. Specific substructures were redesigned for improved strength and resistance to breakage in the field. The entire design was also revised to improve manufacture-ability and reduce production costs. Analysis of pneumatic and hydraulic systems on-board the system also identified areas to improve efficiency and reliability.