Design and development of a modular hydroponic tower with topology optimization

Abstract Tower hydroponics has evolved as an inventive technique for sustainable agriculture, offering benefits in space utilization and water management, and it can be utilized to grow a wide variety of crops. In this work, a hydroponics tower with the advantages of high scalability and flexibility has been designed. The proposed tower comprises four independent modular units, each with four slots for growing plants. Water is supplied to the tower via two pipes connected by a ring-shaped disc to ensure efficient use of water resources. The system can accommodate 20 plants and is designed for optimal space utilization with a 1 m³ spacing. For efficient prototyping, topology optimization considering Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material was employed - for developing an optimal design of each module. The structural stability of the tower was analyzed for various loads corresponding to the number of plants on individual modules and the base of the tower. Utilizing finite element analysis (FEA), the von Mises stresses experienced by the individual modules, base, and the entire tower, and the corresponding displacements under such stress were computed, providing essential insights into potential weaknesses and areas requiring reinforcement. Specifically, each module under a maximum load of 2.3 kg experienced a stress of 4.386 × 10 5 N/m 2 resulting in a displacement of 11.08 × 10 − 3 mm of the ports. Similarly, for the base module under a cumulative load of 60 kg due to five modular units, the stress experienced was 3.773 × 10 5 N/m 2 and the corresponding displacement was 15.30 × 10 − 3 mm. Further, the structure was refined using topology optimization, and FEA analysis for a single module was performed. With a maximum mass reduction of 50%, the stress experienced was 1.468 × 10 5 N/m 2 and the displacement was 3.448 × 10 − 3 mm, thus exhibiting good structural stability. Detailed performance results for stress, strain, and displacements for other scenarios have been presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design.