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A new AguaClara drinking water treatment plant has been designed for the town of Támara, Honduras. The plant has a maximum flow rate of 740 liters per minute and features a vertical flocculation tank with one turn, three sedimentation tanks, and a new plant leveling tank.

Keywords: AguaClara, Design, Támara

AguaClara is a team of students from Cornell University who work to design sustainable water treatment plants in Honduras. The goal of the team is to design and disseminate water treatment plants globally that are easy to build and maintain, that are economical to operate, and that can be prepared using locally available materials.

To date, two AguaClara water treatment plants have been built in Honduras. The first was built under the supervision of Fred Stottlemeyer in La 34, Honduras (Figure 1). This plant featured a horizontal hydraulic flocculator. The second AguaClara plant was built in Ojojona and its initial construction was completed in Fall 2006. The Ojojona plant (Figure 2) was designed by the AguaClara team, and Ted Segal completed the structural design. This was an experimental plant with both a vertical and horizontal flocculator.
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Figure 1. La 34 AguaClara Plant.

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Figure 2. Ojojona Plant.

The next AguaClara plant was planned to be built in the town of Moroceli, Honduras. However, due to transmission pipeline problems, design of this plant was delayed so that it would not sit idle as the transmission line is repaired. The next AguaClara plant will be built in Támara, Honduras.

The Támara design team was only responsible for the environmental engineering design consideration for this plant because Agua Para el Pueblo has hired a civil engineer to deal with all structural aspects.

The Támara plant was partially designed using programs created by the AguaClara team during previous semesters. In Fall 2006, Monroe Weber-Shirk's CEE 454 class created algorithms for the unit processes involved in the plant. In Spring 2007, these algorithms were combined into a Main Program that would begin to design a plant. The program is written in MathCAD, and accepts user inputs such as flow rate and tank width to calculate output design parameters such as tank length and baffle spacing. In Fall 2007, the CEE 454 class created new programs to design pipes and flow measurement structures. These programs were used by the Támara design team as well.

The team also made use of the automated drawing capabilities developed by the Fall 2007 automated design team. This allowed the team to produce AutoCAD commands for drawing of the sedimentation tank by inputting design constraints to a MathCAD program.

The Támara plant flow rate was determined using an initial town population of 5,500 people. The flow rate was based on the projected population and associated water demand in 20 years. Population was calculated using a linear growth model with a 3.5% growth rate. Water demand was estimated as 114 Liters per person per day. The minimum plant flow rate was initially estimated as half of the maximum flow rate. However, after discussion with John Erickson and Carol Serna, the AguaClara engineers in Honduras, it became clear that the town did not currently have a population of 5,500. At the time of design, 570 homes were hooked up to the transmission line. With an average of 6 people per house, this population was 3420 people. This would result in a water demand of 463 L/min in 20 years. The potential for 120 new connections in the near future exists.
However, the engineers in Honduras believe that source at Támara can provide at least 740 L/min. It was decided that 740 L/min should remain the maximum plant flow rate because the actual demand for water is uncertain, and the extra size of the plant would not be too costly. Initial baffle spacing in the flocculation tank will be designed in a way to ensure that the current flow rate, possibly as low as 270 L/ min could be handled.