Frances Ciolino's Individual Contribution Page

Fall 2012 Contributions

This semester I worked on the Sedimentation Tank Hydraulics team.  The main goal of this semesters work is to optimize the floc hopper. In addition to our research we also wrote a blog article for the public relations team to help with our outreach.  One of the ideas we are working on is continuous wasting of the flocs. The idea behind this is to allow for constant removal of flocs instead of collecting the flocs and then having to manually open a valve to let them leave the tank. When the wasting rate is optimal, the flocs will be allowed to compact a little before they are removed so that the least amount of water is removed in the process.  During our research we managed to concentrate our flocs so much that we hit the maximum on the turbidimeter. Our main experiment is testing floc hopper sizes to see what percentage of the total area is most efficient. We are looking for a size and rate that keeps the plant running efficiently, meaning the least amount of water wasted wile keeping the water leaving the plant clean. We are hoping that once we find the best relationship between floc hopper size and wasting rate, we will be able to use this technology in future AguaClara plants.

Spring 2013 Contributions

After visiting Honduras on the January trip and seeing the current plants, I decided to work on the sedimentation tank again since there is still a lot to learn about them.