Research Log

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.