TU Delft - CFD in drinking water treatment

TU Delft - CFD in drinking water treatment

CFD in drinking water treatment
According to the new Water Supply Act, the removal of micro-organisms in the purification of water must meet very stringent requirements. This means that the hydraulic flow of the water in purification systems such as ozonisation and UV-desinfection must also comply with very stringent requirements, since short-circuit flows must in no way occur as they strongly reduce the efficiency. The efficiency of peripheral facilities of sewer systems, at overflow locations, also strongly depend on the flow through the peripheral facility. The efficiency of peripheral facilities of sewer systems, at overflow locations, also strongly depend on the flow through the peripheral facility.In view of the large variation in hydraulic design of peripheral facilities, rationalisation seems to be called for. Finally, the number of breakdowns of sewage pumping-stations, an important cause of overflow, can be reduced by improving the hydraulic design of the pump pit, such that sediment can no longer accumulate at the inlet. So, these research projects focus on describing the flow in treatment plants, pump pits and peripheral facilities by means of CFD modelling.
Amsterdam Water Supply AWS of the Netherlands produces some of the cleanest drinking water in the world, almost 100 million cubic meters per year in fact. They take the water from the Rhine River and purify it in a 14-step process. During the ozone treatment, ozone gas reacts with particular micropollutants in a turbulent tank and inactivates pathogenic micro-organisms. In the perfect world, the water and the ozone gas mix and stay in the reactor just long enough to knock out the targeted pollutants. Dr. Jan Hofman of the AWS Research Planning and Development Department and his colleagues Dolf Wind and Rodolphe Janssens use FEMLAB with scattered flow meter data and tracer experiments to look inside and create the perfect world...more