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We used the pilot plant to test our retrofit design in an environment that replicated the actual plants as closely as possible. The first design we tested was the vertical/inclined plane. We used a 5cm-wide, 60cm-long steel plate to test the effectiveness of this plan to reduce water aeration. Unfortunately, we determined visually that there was very little, if any, change in the amount of bubbles formed before and after inserting the steel plate into the LFOM. Even at various angles of inclination, the amount of bubbles formed was the same. (can you show any visual confirmation of this with pictures for both or either case?)
Next, we used various-sized pipes inserted within the LFOM to test the "pipe within a pipe" theory. First, we tested a 3cm-diameter pipe by inserting it vertically into the 7.5cm-inner diameter LFOM. There was no noticeable change in the amount of bubbles formed under the LFOM. Second, we tested a 5cm pipe. This produced a drastic reduction in the amount of bubbles formed under the LFOM. After leaving the 5cm pipe in the LFOM for 5 minutes, we decided there would be no overflow problem. Finally, we tested a 6cm pipe for 5 minutes in the LFOM. We noticed that the water level outside the LFOM rose slowly throughout the 5 minutes until the water flowed over the top of the LFOM. This clearly meant that the 6cm pipe was too big. (attach mathcad sheet here)
We were able to document results for each variation of the designs visually with photographs and short movies on cameras.