Jan 31, 2008
Entire group met at plant for training session and to create goals for the semester. Removed baffles for new port holes to be cut Monday.
February 4, 2008
Entire Group met to drain and clean out the tank. All sand and dirt was removed.
February 5, 2008
Sara- in San Francisco for ESW conference.
The rest of the group met to cut the larger port holes. The holes were extended upwards because we wanted to maintain the width to prevent short-circuiting. The final design was 85 cm high by 5.5 cm wide. This was a conservative design because the holes are not cut perfectly straight due to the difficulty of cutting in the tank. The sides of the inner tank were re-caulked after the cuts were made.
February 11, 2008
Plant up and running. Up welling noticed coming around the bottom panel. This was causing the first and third sections to fill at the same rate.
Plan to correct upwelling problem - caulk the bottom of the tank. Tank was left running to have comparative data do evaluate the affect of the bypass on the floc formation and plant performance. Turbidimeters cleaned and dessicants returned to lab to be dried out. Edited goals and added details and created milestone dates.
February 12, 2008
Rebecca takes new tube settlers to the plant. (2 broken last time) measures the flow rate coming out of the new tube settler pump and sets the flow rate to 40 ml/min. Takes dessicants back to the plant. (monitor broken)
February 14, 2008
Sara, Kevin, David meet with Raul to discuss the sedimentation tank plan, and what help he needs. Raul is working on the design over the weekend and design review will shortly follow in the next week.
The tank was drained again to prepare and dry the tank for caulking. Given the amount of time needed for the tank to dry for caulking (about a week) it was decided to add additional sand to the cracks around the bottom panel in the third section and in the first section but just in the very first section by the inlet. It was hoped that enough headloss could be created to decrease the severity of the by pass. Upon observation it seemed to at least help the issue a little bit. On Monday if the by pass still seems to be an issue the tank will be drained and caulked before further tests are run.
February 15, 16, 17, 2008
Sara - updating old papers up to the wiki. Work done on Teach-in Presentation. David- Finished draft of gannt chart
February 18, 2008
Entire group met at plant along with Leah to review plant data from the weekend and discuss options for the Automated flow device. Also reviewed options for insulation and lighting on McMaster, and came up with potential options. Sara also described testing procedure to the rest of the group and Rebecca cleaned the turbiditymeters. Plant results were inconsistent, and the turbidity in the flocculator continues to be larger then the inflow water. Heavy condensation was noticed on the tubes connecting the tube settlers to the turbiditymeters, indicating a significant temperature difference between the water and the air. Pictures were taken of various components of the plant, and have been put on the Wiki.
Kevin brought a clear pipe and placed it down the side of the tank where upwelling is suspected to be a problem. Adjusting the pipe, the water in the pipe would rise up to two centimeters above the tank water level. Based on Bernoulli equations this shows that there is a significant velocity, and thus quantity of water bypassing flocculation. We concluded that this does not effect the turbiditimeters because they are placed upstream of the upwelling (the non-flocculated water is not going into the turbiditimeters), however upwelling does effect the flow rate. We must determine if this is significant.
February 21, 2008
Sara, Dave, Leah and Rebecca met at the plant today. The upwelling that Kevin measured previously was remeasured to confirm the significance of the bypass around the bottom panel. Today the height difference in the tube versus in the tank was 3/4". This was still considered significant enough that it was decided that the bottom of the tank would have to be caulked. The tank was was shut off drained and cleaned out to prepare for the caulking. A clear glass 400mL beaker and a large plastic 1000mL beaker were brought to the plant to test the sampling methods that will be used for the alternative method. The glass beaker was determined to be better. Rebecca calculated the time that the beaker sample would have to settle to be equivalent to the settling tubes. It was determined that instead of insulating the tube settlers to prevent the temperature change from affecting settling the tubes were submerged. The apparatus to keep the tubes submerged and at 60 degrees was also determined. They will be suspended off of a tube resting across the dividers. Strings will run down from the resting cross bar to the glass settling tube to hold it in place. To keep air in solution and keep it from bubbling out in the turbiditmeters and skewing data, the outlet from the turbidity meters is going to be raised to increase the pressure in the system and keep the air in solution. Dave is figuring out the necessary height to create enough pressure to keep the air in solution. Leah will also be implementing her entrance tank this upcoming week while the tank is off for caulking. Tom will be adding in the digital flow meter on Friday.
February 25, 2008
Sara, Dave and Kevin met at the plant to check on the status of the flow meter and make sure that the tank was dry prior to calking on Friday. The pressure head and entrance tank setup was discussed. The turbidity tube set up was adjusted to allow for the pressure head device and we set up the schedule for the week and decided on a format for posting the individual gannt charts on the wiki.
February 28,2008
Sara, Dave, Leah and Rebecca met at them plant today. We installed the pressure head device and reconfigured the turbiditymeter tube set up. We made the pressure head device as tall as the room would allow, with the idea that we will re-fit it to the correct height once we have records of the temperature difference between the inflow water and the turbiditymeter vial. We discussed possible methods for suspending the tube settlers. We also reffited the inflow pump to allow for Leah's auto alum control device, which we will install once we get the parts on Monday. We also reviewed possible actions to take once the plant is running and made a rough outline for next week.
February 29,2008
Sara and Kevin met at the plant today. Kevin calked the bottom panel of the tank to prevent upwelling during operation. Caulking the bottom adequately is very important because if it does not seal properly, then more time will be necessary to fix the problem. The walls were wiped down to make sure dirt or particles wouldn't effect the cohesion to the wall. Also, the edges were vacuumed to get dirt and water left over under the crack. This could also effect cohesion. Kevin also helped Tom cut the in-flow pipe in order to put in the flow meter. The flow meter was not fully installed because Tom had other stuff to do. Sara refitted the baffle connections in section 2 since we noticed that many of the connections were loose or broken.
Day |
Task for Week of FEB 24-29 |
|---|---|
Monday |
Alter turbiditimeter outlet to raise pressure; implement settling tube suspension system |
Tuesday |
Fix Baffles (loose screws etc) |
Wednesday |
Changing Rapid Mix to accommodate entrance tank |
Thursday |
Caulk the bottom panel of tank |
Friday |
Implement all changes and restart the tank |
February 30,2008
Dave went to the plant today to refit the baffle connections in section 1.
March 3, 2008
Kevin and Dave went to the plant to try to get the plant running. However, the in-flow pipe had not been put back together (the flow-meter was supposed to be installed), as Tom had promised. Instead we figured out a way to support the in-flow bucket using metal braces. We decided on a design with Tom, and are going back tomorrow to work on it.
March 4, 2008
Sara, Kevin and Dave went down to the plant to work on the tank modifications. Kevin and Tom worked on installing the flow-meter, while Sara and Dave prepared the support set up for the flow control device. The bracing system is almost done, but we now need to make some modifications to the flow control bucket to make sure spilling does not occur. The flow-meter will require more work, but significant progress was made on it today.
March 6, 2008
Rebecca developed a data analysis method, working with mathCAD programs used in previous semesters by Carol Serna.
March 8, 2008
Sara, Dave and Kevin meet to work on the Sedimentation tank design. Ran existing programs and also created new program to back calculate design for the existing tank size. Emailed Chris to learn more about optimum sludge blanket thickness, relationship of the sludge blanket and the lamella.
March 9, 2008
Kevin went the plant to add sand, replace baffles and finish stand for flow meter bucket.
March 8, 2008
Sara, Dave, and Kevin began work on the sed tank design. We used existing files and tried to think up how the sed tank would function schematically. We concluded that the tank will require a plant leveling tank to set the water level in the sed tank and to divert the desired amount of water to the sed tank.
March 10, 2008
Sara glued rapid mix tube in place. Ordered ratchet straps to secure the flow meter bucket and the thin riser pipe that is increasing the pressure on the turbidity meter set-up. Found ring stand see clamps in the lab to use for securing the in tank light.
March 13, 2008
Sara, Dave, and Kevin continued work on the design of the sed tank. We wrote most of the programs necessary to solve for unknowns, and drew up a 2-D sketch of the plant. We also wrote and posted our midterm report of what we have accomplished on the pilot plant and the sed tank design.
March 26, 2008
Sara, Dave, and Kevin made corrections and touch-ups to the sed tank design. Sara and Kevin met with Monroe, and decided to look into buying a new tank with more appropriate dimensions. From US Plastics we found these tanks with the appropriate cross-sectional area (.5m):
Rectangular Tank with Cover: 30"x30"x30", 115 gallons, $604, item # 8356
Heavy Duty Graduated Polyethylene Tank: 30"x36", 100 gallons, $235, Item #4210
Heavy Duty Polyethylene Tank: 36"x24"x24",90 gallons $230, item #6330
Nara, Leah, and Rebecca went to the plant. Leah investigated why the water height was high in the flow measuring bucket. She discovered that small fish and crustacea were getting into the system and getting plugging the holes. A metal grate was added to the inlet side of the pump from the stream water to filter out large particles and remedy this problem. Nara and Rebecca collected data from runs before and after the improvements to the tank set-up. They also developed a preliminary procedure for "profile runs" in which the tube settlers are moved to various locations within a relatively short period of time in order to develop a floc profile at that time. Rebecca secured the use of the CUWTP laboratory turbidimeter for grab sample testing.
April 2, 2008
Rebecca found that turbidimeter pump is in handling the added head that it has to reach without a problem. She changed the alum constants in order to get flocs to form. A = 10, B = 15. She performed some grab samples and found that the turbidity using the grab sample method was about 52% higher than the turbidity readings of the turbidimeters.