Novel Fluidic Control System for Stacked Rapid Sand Filters

AbstractInfrastructure for water treatment faces numerous challenges around the world, including the high failure rate of digital, electronic, pneumatic, and mechanical control systems due to their large number of components and their dependency on proprietary parts for repair. The development of more efficient, reliable, easily repaired water treatment controls that rely on simple fluidics rather than on complex systems has the potential to significantly improve the reliability of drinking water treatment plants, particularly for cities and towns in developing countries. A stacked rapid sand filter (SRSF) has been proposed as a more robust and sustainable alternative to conventional rapid sand filters because each filter can backwash at the same flow rate used for filtration without requiring pumps or storage tanks. While the concept of this filter has been demonstrated in previous studies, this paper presents a novel control system for the SRSF based on fluidics that eliminates the need for mechanized c...