Pierre François

Suspended particles in wastewater: their optical, sedimentation and acoustical characterization and modeling.

Wastewater regulation and treatment is still a major concern in planetary pollution management. Some pollutants, referred to as particulate matter, consist of very small particles just suspended in the water. Various techniques are used for the suspended particles survey. Few of them are able to provide real-time data. The development of new, real time instruments needs the confrontation with real wastewater. Due its instability, the modeling of wastewater in terms of suspended solids was explored. Knowing the description of real wastewater, we tried to produce a synthetic mixture made of basic organic ingredients. A good agreement in terms of turbidity and settling velocity was observed between the artificial wastewater matrix and the real one. The investigation of the individual contribution of the different compounds to the acoustical signal showed a more complex dependence. Thus the modeling of wastewater with reference to turbidity and settling velocity is not sufficient to describe it acoustically. Further studies should lead to a good comparison of the acoustical and turbidity behavior of wastewater.

Detailed Velocity and Concentration Profiles Measurement During Activated Sludge Batch Settling Using an Ultrasonic Transducer

Activated sludge settling is a complex process requiring a thorough experimental study. It is, however, difficult to obtain information on the inner behavior of the sludge blanket without disturbing it. Optical methods are inefficient due to the opacity of sludge suspensions. This paper focuses on the investigation of activated sludge batch settling using a non-invasive method based on an ultrasonic transducer. The treatment of the signal allowed obtaining data on the settling velocity and concentration profiles inside of the suspension. The different settling regimes were clearly shown by the results on the basis of the shape of the settling velocity isolines. The precision of the gathered data is adapted to the calibration and validation of numerical models. The material used in the experimental setup can be installed in actual wastewater treatment plants.

On constitutive functions for hindered settling velocity in 1-D settler models : Selection of appropriate model structure

Advanced 1-D models for Secondary Settling Tanks (SSTs) explicitly account for several phenomena that influence the settling process (such as hindered settling and compression settling). For each of these phenomena a valid mathematical expression needs to be selected and its parameters calibrated to obtain a model that can be used for operation and control. This is, however, a challenging task as these phenomena may occur simultaneously. Therefore, the presented work evaluates several available expressions for hindered settling based on long-term batch settling data. Specific attention is paid to the behaviour of these hindered settling functions in the compression region in order to evaluate how the modelling of sludge compression is influenced by the choice of a certain hindered settling function. The analysis shows that the exponential hindered settling forms, which are most commonly used in traditional SST models, not only account for hindered settling but partly lump other phenomena (compression) as well. This makes them unsuitable for advanced 1-D models that explicitly include each phenomenon in a modular way. A power-law function is shown to be more appropriate to describe the hindered settling velocity in advanced 1-D SST models.

Concentration-driven models revisited: Towards a unified framework to model settling tanks in water resource recovery facilities

A new perspective on the modelling of settling behaviour in water resource recovery facilities is introduced. The ultimate goal is to describe in a unified way the processes taking place both in primary settling tanks (PSTs) and secondary settling tanks (SSTs) for a more detailed operation and control. First, experimental evidence is provided, pointing out distributed particle properties (such as size, shape, density, porosity, and flocculation state) as an important common source of distributed settling behaviour in different settling unit processes and throughout different settling regimes (discrete, hindered and compression settling). Subsequently, a unified model framework that considers several particle classes is proposed in order to describe distributions in settling behaviour as well as the effect of variations in particle properties on the settling process. The result is a set of partial differential equations (PDEs) that are valid from dilute concentrations, where they correspond to discrete settling, to concentrated suspensions, where they correspond to compression settling. Consequently, these PDEs model both PSTs and SSTs.

Attenuation of an ultrasonic beam by suspended particles and range of acoustic flow meters in sewer networks

Ultrasonic flow meters are commonly used in wastewater management. Under certain circumstances, a reduction in the flow meter range may occur and cause significant error in the flow rate measurement. Attenuation due to suspended particles is one of the phenomena capable of reducing the flow meter range. The present paper examines attenuation resulting from re-suspended pond sediment over a wide range of concentration values. It appears that a formula established for sand suspensions provides a good estimate of ultrasound attenuation for these types of particles as well. Experiments conducted for wastewater under particle concentrations commonly encountered in sewer networks demonstrate that the attenuation by particles only contributes to a negligible extent towards intensity decay, in accordance with theoretical predictions. We also theoretically determine herein the operating conditions under which the range of an ultrasonic flow meter would be significantly reduced due to particle attenuation.