This research was developed with the objective of evaluating the average drop diameter, the rain intensity and the distribution uniformity, for different arrangements of nozzle diameters and service pressures of a suspended rainfall simulator. A computational program was utilized in order to evaluate the relationship between the rainfall kinetic energy simulated by a rainfall infiltrometer and natural rainfall kinetic energy. Beyond this, some tests of rainfall intensity and distribution uniformity were realized. The results showed the relation between the simulated rainfall kinetic energy and natural rainfall kinetic energy was higher than 75% when the VeeJet 80.150 nozzles were used, for all service pressures and rainfall intensities considered; and higher uniformity coefficient were obtained when the nozzles were submitted to higher service pressures.
sprinkler infiltrometer; drop diameter; rainfall intensity
