clb264

Fall 2008 Mid-Semester Contributions

For the Fall 2008 semester, I have been on the Flocculation group of the Pilot Plant Team. Within the Flocculation group, we 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, so we have just started testing uniform baffle spacing in the vertical flow hydraulic flocculator. 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.
The Flocculation group also had the task of organizing the Flocculation section of the Pilot Plant Wiki page.  I was in charge of organizing the Overview and Methods and Research sections of the Uniform Vertical Flow Hydraulic Flocculator page.  Results from the Methods and Research section ended up being moved to a new Results section.  The task of organizing the Uniform Vertical Flow Hydraulic Flocculator page involved moving links into easily understood categories in order to make the information more easily accessible and creating new links such as Grab Sample Turbidity Testing, Testing of Uniform Baffle Configuration, and Testing and Tank Modifications which I ended up moving under the Construction History section.