Automated Materials List
The goal of the Automated Materials List is to calculate the volume of concrete needed, areas of components that will be made out of bricks (these areas can be divided by the area of one brick to see how many bricks are needed), lengths and sizes of pipes, number of plastic sheets for the lamella, etc. The final Materials List should act as a rough outline for on-site construction and facilitate the job of the engineers and planners. This program requires inputs from the user and from the design assumptions to compute the necessary calculations. Currently, the List calculates the total materials needed for construction and various dimensions for different components of the plant.
The output of the Design Tool now includes a dedicated Materials List section in the Design Specifications document, comprised of important variables from the Entrance Tank, Flocculation Tank, and Sedimentation Tank. Engineers designing plants will now be able to estimate how much material is needed to construct the different components of the plant, including the walls of the various tanks and channels, lengths and sizes of PVC pipe, corrugated plastic sheets for the lamella, and valves and adapters. This will allow them to have a better idea of what is needed to construct an AguaClara plant. The Materials List will continue to be updated based on feedback from the engineers in Honduras so that it provides information that is most useful to them in the construction process. Since the values are specific to the plant being designed, it serves as a personalized link between the AguaClara team, the Automated Design Tool, and the creators of the plant.
Materials List Program Algorithm
Automated Materials List Program Inputs
Automated Materials List Program Outputs
Algorithm
The first step in calculating the materials was to determine the geometry of the different components of the plant and which parts of the plant were constructed out of which types of materials (e.g. concrete, ferrous cement, corrugated plastic, PVC pipe). Then the volumes and quantities were calculated from the dimensions used in each components' design algorithm.
Entrance Tank
The Entrance tank volume was found using the design specifications from the automated entrance tank design program and the user inputs. The tank's volume is calculated by considering the four walls lengths, widths and thicknesses. A.EtFloor defines the area of the entrance tank floor. A.EtWalls defines the area of the entrance tank walls.
Vol.EtWalls calculates the volume of the entrance tank walls and is a function of the height of the entrance tank (H.Et), the length of the entrance tank (L.Et), the width of the entrance tank (W.Et), and the thickness of the entrance tank wall(T.EtWall).
Flocculation Tank
The total area of the walls of the flocculation tank depends on the total number of floc channels and the length of the sedimentation tank.
The total volume of the walls of the flocculation tank depends on the length of the flocculation tank, the thickness of the plant wall, the height of the flocculation tank, the number of flocculation channels, and the width of the flocculation channels. Since all of the walls in the flocculation tank are the same thickness, the volume can be calculated by multiplying the area of the floc walls by the thickness of the plant wall (T.PlantWall).
The area of the floor of the flocculation tank depends on the length of the flocculation tank, the thickness of the plant wall, the number of flocculation channels, and the width of the flocculation channels. The volume of the floor of the flocculation tank is the product of the area and thickness of the floor:
The volume of the floc baffles is dependent on the width of the channels, the thickness of the baffle, the length of the baffle, and the number of baffles per channel. The number of baffles per channel is a calculated variable based on the length of the flocculation tank and the perpendicular spacing between baffles, which differs per channel. The baffles are also split between upper and lower baffles. Since the floc channel begins with a lower baffle, the equation is set-up so an odd number of baffles results in an extra lower baffle. If there are an X number of floc channels in a floc tank, the N.FlocChannelBaffles, L.FlocBaffleUpper, and L.FlocBaffleLower are X value arrays, which allow us to use a dot product to find the total length of the tank's baffles, rather than calculating each channel individually.
To see how the number of baffles per channel is determined and why there are upper and lower baffles, please consult the flocculator algorithm. The volume needed (of plastic or concrete, depending on the size of the plant) for the baffles is under the diagram below.
The total surface area of the flocculation baffles can be found by dividing the total volume of all the flocculation baffles by the thickness of one flocculation baffle.
Inlet and Exit Channels of the Sedimentation Tank
The volumes of the exit and inlet channels are derived from the user-input dimensions for each component. Using the widths, lengths, and thicknesses of each wall, the volume is computed by direct multiplication. The inlet channel also considers the dimensions of the sedimentation manifold entrance and the number of sedimentation inlet pipes. The quantity that is removed from the inlet channel due to the sedimentation inlet pipes is the volume of a single inlet pipe multiplied by the number of pipes.
The wall and floor volumes of the inlet and exit channels similarly depend on their respective length, widths, height, and thickness:
The surface area of the walls and the floor of the inlet and exit channels also depend on the respective width, length, height, and thickness:
The inlet and exit channels are attached to control boxes containing the weirs that connect to the sedimentation tank. Since the plant weirs are being recoded, these equations will change in the future, but for now, these dimensions were calculated to be built around the nominal diameter of the plant weir and the spacing required between the elbows.
The total length of weir pipes in the inlet and exit channel boxes is derived from the user-input values that are found upon calculating the necessary height of the pipe for the determined water velocity. This height multiplied by the number of weir pipes yields the total length of pipe necessary.
The volumes of the inlet and exit channel boxes are determined by finding the area of the floor of each tank and the area of the walls of each tank. These are then multiplied by the thickness of the channel wall, or T.ChannelWall. The total volume of each tank is equal to the volume of the walls plus the volume of the floor. 
Sedimentation Tank
The volume of the sedimentation tank depends on user-input values. The dimensions of the sludge drain must then be subtracted from the overall volume to account for the design of the drainage system.
The area of the floor of the sedimentation tank depends on the length and width of the sedimentation tanks as well as the number of sedimentation tanks. The volume of the floor of the sedimentation tank is the product of the area and thickness of the floor. There has been some question as to whether the thickness of the inner walls of the sedimentation tank (T.PltWall) and that of the outer walls (T.PlantWall) is the same. Assuming they are not the same, the equations for the area and volume of the floor of the sedimentation tank are as follows:
The area and volume of the sedimentation slopes is determined as follows:
The total number of launders is determined by the number of launders per sed bay and the total number of sed bays.
The total length of launder pipe needed is dependent on the individual length of one launder and the total number of launders.
The size of the PVC pipe will depend on the user-input ND.SedLaunder.
The launder also requires a coupling to go through the concrete wall of the sedimentation tank. The number of couplings needed is equal to the number of launders in the plant.
The number of valves and valve couplings needed to drain the tank are found from the sedimentation design specifications with one valve per sedimentation bay.
The necessary output to construct the plate settlers is the total number of corrugated sheets needed. This is determined by calculating the total number of plate settlers, how many plate settlers would fit on a given sheet of plastic, and dividing to find the total number of required sheets.
The plate settlers are supported by a sedimentation plate frame constructed of PVC pipes running across the width and length of the sedimentation tank. The length of PVC pipe required to construct this module was determined using the dimensions of the sedimentation tank and the center-to-center distance between each parallel pipe.
Stock Tank
The function of the stock tank to add the alum coagulant to the raw water during rapid mix. The volume of the stock tank is constrained by flow rate and retention time. More specifically, the volume of the stock tank is the maximum flow rate through the aluminum stock tank multiplied by the duration of alum stock tank at maximum alum dose and plant flow rate.
The only other variable that needs be specified by the user to determine the other dimensions of the stock tank is diameter of the stock tank. Once the diameter has been set, the radius is half the diameter, and the corresponding required height can subsequently be calculated.
Finally, the total area and the floor area of the stock tank are determined by the previously calculated height and radius:
