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Monica Hill's Individual Contribution Page

"Fall 2000" Contributions

Rough Draft

This semester I have been a part of the chemical dosing team.  Although I originally started working on the hydraulic design e.g. tube sizing and orifice sizing, my files were compiled with Yoon Choi's MathCad file and he has essentially taken "ownership" of the hydraulic design.  I therefore have no significant conclusions or documents concerning this stage of the project.

Spring 2011

Operators in Honduras have expressed a preference in operating the earlier-style Linear Dose Controller (LDC) over the Non-Linear Dose Controller designed during the Fall of 2009. The LDC is an elegantly simple design that requires minimal input and oversight from the operator, however, the LDC looses its elegance as plant flow rate increase. A new style of dose controller that can operate at high plant flow rates has been designed.

This new dose controller uses a specialized ball valve as the metering device for the coagulant. Additionally, plant flow rate is measured through the High Flow Orifice Meter (HFOM). Together, these components make up the High Flow Dose Controller (HFDC)and provide AguaClara with the means to dramatically increase plant size.

Summer 2010 Contributions

The Non-Linear Dose Controller (NLDC) continued to evolve during the Spring 2010 Semester (of which I was not involved). The NLDC design faced challenges that required further investigation and understanding: 1)errors induced by surface tension as fluid passed through the orifice 2) orifice manufacturing techniques create inconsistent entrance and exit regions. In house manufacturing processes were evaluated to determine the ease and accuracy with which a orifice could be manufactured.

Fall 2009 Contributions

During the Fall of 2009 I was part of the Non Linear Chemical Dose Controller Team.  We evaluated the feasibility of creating a dose controller which used an orifice to precisely meter control chemicals in our plants.

 Specifically, I  designed the testing structure for the dose controller.  The structure was constructed using 80/20 "The Engineer's Erector Set."  This gave the engineers in Honduras the flexibility to modify the structure as we worked toward developing a functional dose controller. 

2008 Volunteer Contributions

Prior to starting my MEng program, I volunteered for the AguaClara group.  I worked with the "Pilot Plant" team where we developed a method that allowed for easier adjustment of the flocculator baffle spacing I have since been working primarily with Harrison and a bit with Akta to design the mechanical end of our doser.  Our design uses components manufactured by 80/20 structural aluminum: /.&nbsp They offer an Autocad plug which we used to assist in our design process.  This has allowed us to create detailed enough structures that we can easily analyze and modify.  We have created 3 versions of our doser and have chosen to construct the model which will allow our orifice to be moved in line with the pivot, thereby allowing positive shut-off by the operator.