CFD is routinely used to investigate flow patterns in large water storage tanks to:
- Ensure proper mixing over time
- Minimize the occurrence of stagnant water
- Identify short-circuiting in contact tanks
- Compute contact or retention time from the inlet to the outlet of tanks with baffles
- Evaluate various design alternatives in situations where rapid mixing of various flows is necessary
In the wastewater industry, grit and debris accumulation is a common problem. Alden has developed a very successful program for addressing grit deposition using a combination of physical and numerical modeling.
Numerical modeling is used to:
- Improve flow patterns
- Reduce areas of flow separation where grit deposition typically occurs
- Confirm the change in deposition patterns using mass and mass-less particle tracking
Physical models are then used to verify the results of the numerical simulations.
Both the water and wastewater industry use a variety of open-channel flow structures with diversions. Where headloss is critical, CFD or physical modeling is used to predict the headloss through the system.
Most water and wastewater treatment plants rely on pumps at some point in the process to move the water. CFD can be used to determine the approach flow to the wet wells, at which point physical modeling is then used to determine if vortex formation will be a problem.
