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Introduction and Objectives
For the summer of 2009, our team has two main goals:
- We will attempt to recreate the foam in a laboratory setting that has been forming in many of the AguaClara plants in Hoduras, and find a way to fix both the current plants and any future plants.
- We will update MathCAD code for the new Nonlinear Chemical Dose Controller and hopefully be able to build a fully functional prototype by the end of the summer.
These two goals are very important to the overall goals of AguaClara for a number of reasons. The foam that forms in the current AguaClara Plants both increases the amount of work that plant operators have to spend to keep the water clean, and reduces the overall effectiveness of the plants as the dirty foam flows out of the plant with the clean water. As AguaClara continues to grow and serve larger and larger communities, we will be building plants with much bigger capacities, where the amount of foam would be impossible to clean. Therefore, it is imperative that we find a solution not only for the current plants in operation, but also for the future plants we design. This summer we hope to learn how the foam is created, and what design changes we can make that will reduce or even eliminate foam formation.
Also, as we evolve to build larger plants, the Linear Chemical Dose Controller (LCDC) won't be able to provide a sufficient dose of chemicals to treat the larger flow rates. The CDC team from past semesters has found that the LCDC can only provide chemical flows up to 400mL/min, which is too low for larger plants. Thus, a Nonlinear Chemical Dose Controller (NCDC), which won't be linearly dependent on water height like the LCDC, is needed for bigger plants. This summer we will need to improve upon the initial design of a NCDC in order to make it more dependable and robust.
It is our hope that at the end of the summer, the plant operators in Honduras will have a quick-fix way to eliminate the foam forming in their plants, and that future AguaClara plants will have larger capacities, allowing them to provide clean, foam free drinking water for more and more people.**paragraph**
Summer 2009 CDC Research Team's goals and meeting minutes.
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