Chemical Dose Controller
Overview
The chemical dose controller is currently comprised of three projects, the linear flow orifice meter, the flow controller, and the chemical doser. These components of the system act together to allow the plant to respond to changes in inflow by both linearizing the change in plant flow and automatically adjusting chemical dosing to the plant. With this system AguaClara plants should be more resilient because operators are only required to adjust chemical dosing settings based on incoming turbidity, not based on flow rates.
Stay up-to-date on this project by checking the [Meeting Minutes] and [goals]
Current Research Teams
Nonlinear Chemical Dose Controller
- For high plant flow rates, therefore high alum flow rates, the head loss through flow controller orifice is drastically large and the flow in the dosing tube in turbulent. Therefore, a chemical doser with a constant chemical dose response to nonlinear changes in plant flow is being designed.
[Gracias Entrance Tank Design]
- We are currently working on the design of the entrance tank for a new plant that will be built in Gracias.
Past Projects
The Linear Flow Orifice Meter riser pipe, LFOM, is located in the entrance tank. The addition of the entrance tank creates a linear relationship between the flow rate through the plant and the height of water in the entrance tank so that a float system can be used to gather information about flow rate through the plant.
The [Chemical Doser] creates a one-to-one relationship between the plant inflow tank water level and the flow controller outflow tubing level.
The Flow Controller maintains a constant head level in a small bottle so that hydraulics can be used to dose a specific chemical flow rate solely by controlling the outflow tubing level.