Model of an Upgrade

As further studies and more extensive computer models help engineers better understand the workings of wastewater treatment plant processes, those engineers are finding more efficient ways to run the plants. These changes can result in considerable improvements in the quality and quantity of effluent released. In an era of tight municipal budgets, raising the throughput of a treatment plant by increasing its efficiency can put off expensive physical upgrades. Engineers from Hydromantis, Inc., Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, applied these principles to the aging Woodward Avenue Treatment Facility, also in Hamilton, with Hydromantis' own General Purpose Simulator and SimWorks software. With these Unix- and Windows-based tools, engineers from Hydromantis and CH2M Hill, Engineering, Ltd., Waterloo, Ontario, were able to study a number of different ways of configuring the existing tanks and come up with an arrangement that could increase the plant's output by almost half and reduce the suspended solids concentration in released effluent by rouhgly 50%. In addition, the program has been used to determine what operating sludge retention time maximizes nitrification and minimizes solids washout during wet weather flow.