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Since the beginning of the Fall 2008 semester, I have been working on the Pilot Plant Team. I was specifically working on the Sedimentation Team, with the two separate sedimentation tanks to experiment with sludge blankets and lamella to obtain the clearest effluent. Unfortunately, our team has met several obstacles, and we have not yet been able to begin the testing. In the very beginning of the semester, we were told that a pipe from the flocculator to one of the sedimentation tanks was leaking. We shut down the plant; however, the pipe needed to be completely dry in order for the caulk to set properly, so we waited. After three separate trips to the pilot plant to dry the area and re-caulk it, Julia discovered that it was actually the plant leveling tank that was leaking. I fabricated a seal for one of the pipes to the sedimentation tank so that the flocculator could still operate independent of the leak.
When I wasn't heading up to the pilot plant to check the leaky pipe, I worked on the Sedimentation wiki, organizing the Spring 2008 report into something that would be more user friendly and accessible, including the following pages: Pilot Plant Sedimentation Tank Overview, PPST Research , PPST Maintenance , and the PPST Construction History.
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