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I am a member of the Turbidimeter team as well as the Inlet Manifold Fabrication Team. This semester on the Turbidimeter team worked to make the turbidimeter more accurate. We tried to do this by experimenting with different colored LED lights and different sizes of HDPE blocks. At the end of the semester we were able to come up with a design that can possibly read down to about 7 NTU while still being only 60 cm long. However, this design needs to be tested more for accuracy before it can be used. Also, the team has concluded that it may impossible to get any lower read any lower NTU without lengthening the plastic stick that is the turbidimeter lowering rod.
On the inlet manifold team we worked to create a suitable method for creating the inlet manifold diffuser tubes that have been designed for the plant. The main problem that need to solved was that a fabrication method needed to be established for changing the shape of the diffuser tubes (PVC pipe) from a circle into a rectangle. The final method that the team came up for creating this rectangular geometry was heating the PVC pipe in boiling water over a hot plate and then forcing the hot PVC over a metal mold that had also been heated in the boiling water.
Spring 2012
This semester I joined the design team and will be working with Julia Morris to finish up the turbidimeter.