Numerical modeling on inlet aperture effects on flow pattern in primary settling tanks

Inlets should be designed to dissipate the kinetic energy or velocity head of the mixed liquor and to prevent short-circuiting, mitigate the effects of density currents, and minimize blanket disturbances. Flow in primary settling tank is simulated by means of computational fluid dynamics. The fluid is assumed incompressible and non-buoyant. A two-dimensional computational and one phase fluid dynamics model was built to simulate the flow properties in the settling tank including the velocity profiles, the flow separation area and kinetic energy. In this study, the RNG turbulent model was solved with the Navier-Stokes equations. In order to evaluate hydraulic influences on the velocity profile, separation length and kinetic energy, three different of opening positions and two and three aperture in inlets were simulated. The flow model uses to apply a fixed-grid of cells that are all rectangular faces; the fluid moves through the grid and free surfaces are tracked with the volume-of-fluid (VOF) technique. Effects of numbers and locations of inlet apertures on the flow field are presented and the results show the positions of inlet apertures are affected on the flow pattern in the settling basin and increasing the numbers of slots can reduce kinetic energy in the inlet zone and produce uniform flow. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.