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For the Fall 2008 semester, I have been on the Flocculation group of the Pilot Plant Team. Within the Flocculation group, I have been working with the Tube Flocculator and the Uniform Vertical Flow Hydraulic Flocculator. Since I am new to the project, I've spent a lot of time this semester learning about the set up at the pilot plant and the experiments we plan to do this semester. In the beginning of the semester, we had some set-backs with a leak. After the lead was resolved, we started Uniform Baffle Testing in the vertical flow hydraulic flocculator, and interpreted the results. Henry and I calculated the number of baffles and the baffle spacing for non-uniform spacing and put the baffles together. We will begin testing non-uniform baffle spacing next week. In the lab, we have been cleaning out the vertical flow hydraulic flocculator with a pump, cleaning the turbidimeters and then testing the turbidity of the water at different points in the tank. We tried to start testing on the tube flocculator, but failed because we could not seem to get the air bubbles out of the tube. The bubbles seem to appear at the transition to clear tubing, so we may try to replace the clear tubing in order to solve this problem.
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