The effect of inlet and outlet position and sediments

concentration on sedimentation tank efficiency

A. BOUISFI
F. BOUISFI H. OUARRICHE
Physics department
Physics department Physics department
UMI, Faculty of Sciences
UMI, Faculty of Sciences UMI, Faculty of Sciences
Meknes, Morocco
Meknes, Morocco Meknes, Morocco
achraf.bouisfi@danone.com
firdaous.bouisfi@gmail.com ouar.Hamza@gmail.com
M. CHAOUI
M. El BOUHALI
Physics department
Physics department
UMI, Faculty of Sciences
UMI, Faculty of Sciences
Meknes, Morocco
Meknes, Morocco
chaouimohammad@gmail.com
elbouhali.moeva@gmail.com

Abstract— In this study, numerical model has been employed
in order to study the effect of inlet and outlet position on
sedimentation efficiency of rectangular sedimentation tank. This
modified configuration has been tested with different particle size
and concentration. Sedimentation efficiency was evaluated by
calculation of trap efficiency. Results show that changing inlet
and outlet location increase hydraulic performance of the tank.
Flow field showed his sensitivity to suspension concentration
when inlet and outlet are in the middle of the tank. However inlet
and outlet location improve sedimentation efficiency, especially
for fine particles. The present model is confirmed by
experimentation measurement in Swiss conducted by the
Laboratory of Hydraulic Construction of the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology
Keywords: Numerical model; Sedimentation tank;
Hydraulic performance; Sedimentation efficiency
I. INTRODUCTION
Surface water is immediately in contact with various kind of
pollution. Sedimentation is the oldest water treatment based on
letting suspended material settles by gravity. Sedimentation
tank constituted an important part of water treatment plan.
There are two main types of sedimentation tanks: primary and
secondary. Primary settlers have a low influent concentration.
Flow field in these systems are not influenced by concentration
field, and the buoyancy effects can be negligible. Secondary
settlers (i.e., those in the activated-sludge process or chemical
coagulation processes are also sedimentation tanks where flocs
are removed by hindered gravity) have a higher influent
concentration resulting in increased particle size and the flow
field being influenced by concentration distribution [1].
Sedimentation tank was the subject of many theoretical,
experimental and numerical investigations. Many researches
have been interested by computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
tool to improve the design of sedimentation tanks. Larsen
[2] was probably the first who applied CFD simulation to
several sedimentation tanks. Imam [3] proposed a numerical
model for both steady and unsteady solids transport to
determine the velocity field and the sediment concentration
distribution in the tank. It was applied to study the effect of
reaction baffle submergence on solid removal. McCorquodale
and Zhou [4] studied the effect of various solids and hydraulic
loads on circular clarifier performance.
Many factors affect the sedimentation tanks performance;
the flow field has to be uniform and calm for improving the
efficiency of the settling tank. However the flow pattern is
generally turbulent, recirculation zones appears in the tank and
create a short circuiting between inlet and outlet. Consequently
the performance of settling tanks decrease. The useful method
to reduce this recirculation zones, is to use baffles. It should be
noted that the use of baffles without a comprehensive flow
study may decrease the removal efficiency of the tank without
baffle [5]. Zhou [6] investigated the importance of a baffle in
dissipating the kinetic energy of the incoming flow and
reducing recirculation zones and mentioned that the location of
the baffle has a pronounced effect on the nature of the flow. In
the other hand, inlet position may contribute on energy
dissipation of incoming flow, as investigated by several
researches [7]. Rostami [8] used a numerical model to simulate
the flow field in primary settling tanks and showed that
increasing the numbers of slots in inlet can reduce kinetic
energy in the inlet zone and produce uniform flow. Tamayol [9]
showed that the best position of inlet is to be placed in the
middepht of the tank. Moreover, inlet from the bottom is better
than from the surface. Nevertheless, centrally fed with
peripheral effluent increase sedimentation efficiency of circular
settling tanks [10].
The main of this study is to investigate the effect of inlet
and outlet position and suspension concentration on the flow
field in sedimentation tank and on the removal efficiency. An
experimental installation of a sedimentation tank that was used
in experiments conducted by the Laboratory of Hydraulic
Construction of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology is
adopted for the numerical simulations of the present paper [11].
I. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Characteristics of the sedimentation tank

978-1-5386-4225-2/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

 The setup consists of a rectangular inlet channel, 0.25 m TABLE.I CONFIGURATIONS OF TESTED GEOMETRIES WITH
wide and a rectangular shallow basin with inner dimensions of DIFFERENT CASES
6 m long and 4 m wide and a rectangular outlet channel 0.25 m Geometries Cases D50 (µm) C (kg/m3)
wide. The basin is 0.2 m in depth (Figure 1). The flow rate is
7 l/s, fluid density is 996kg/m3. Sediment concentration is 1 50 3
taken 3kg/m3, median grain size is D50= 50µm and particles
density is 1500kg/m3. In this study a new inlet and outlet 2 50 10
configuration will be tested with different particles size and
suspension concentration (Table 1). 3 120 3
(A)

B. Numerical model 4 120 10

The flow behavior in the sedimentation tank is computed 5 250 3
with a commercial CFD code, using finite volume
discretization method. The fluid flow is considered to be steady 6 250 10
and incompressible. A grid is placed over the flow region by
solving equations of continuity and momentum conservation 7 500 3
over each cell of the grid. In order to ensure the convergence (B)
of solution, a grid dependency was performed and the selected 8 500 10
grid in this study consists of 344000 hexahedral elements.
To account of turbulence, Realizable k-ε turbulence model
Wall was considered smooth; consequently no slip condition
was used, since this model provides the best performance for
and standard wall function were selected. Backflow conditions
separated flows. Particles are modeled as discrete phase are taken for both inlet and outlet as: hydraulic diameter of
without particle-particle interaction. This carried out with 0.308 m and turbulence intensity of 4.23%.
Discrete Phase Model (DPM) which tracks particles in
Lagrangian reference frame. Moreover, in this study particle-
fluid interaction is taking into account using a coupled II. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Discrete Phase Model.
A. Validation test
The numerical schemes are taken as: the standard for Numerical results are compared with experimental data of
pressure. The second order upwind for momentum equation, Kantoush et al (experimental LSPIV). In Fig. 2, numerical
the First order upwind for the turbulence kinetic energy and result shows good agreements with experimental results.
the dissipation rate of turbulence kinetic energy. The SIMPLE
scheme for pressure–velocity coupling is used. Numerical results
Experimental results LSPIV
0,20
C. Boundray conditions
0,18
The initial condition was velocity magnitude normal to the
inflow of 0.14 m/s. Outlet of the tank and free surface were 0,16
defined respectively as pressure outlet condition and symmetry
Velocity magnitude (m/s)

boundary condition. Symmetry condition was characterized by 0,14

zero normal gradients. 0,12

0,10

0,08

0,06

0,04

0,02

0,00
0 2 4 6
X-distance in flow direction (m)

Fig.2. Comparison on velocity magnitude of numerical results and

experimental results
Fig.1. Schematic view of experimental installation Kantoush [11]
 B. Flow pattern
In Fig 3 flow fields calculated for two different inlet and
outlet configuration are shown. As can be seen, increasing
suspension concentration and particle size have a considerable
effect on the streamlines when the inlet and outlet are at the
middle of the tank. However, in the modified configuration,
A-case1 B- case1 velocity decreases at high sediment concentration.
Furthermore increasing concentration and particles size in this
configuration doesn’t have an effect on flow field.

C. Solid distribution
In Fig 4, the effect of modified inlet and outlet position on
the settling efficiency is displayed. It’s clear that modified
configuration allow sediment to settle on the bottom in two
A-case2 B-case 2 different sides of the tank: width and length. Furthermore,
sediments deposition is important along the main jet of the tank
0
(width side). It means that particle settling was enhanced by the
0.05 presence of wall. This phenomenon has been investigated by
different studies focused on the effect of smooth and rough
0.10
wall on the flow behavior [12, 13].
0.12
D. Trap effeciency
0.15
In order to insure the effect of inlet and outlet position on
B-case6 the settling tank efficiency, trap efficiency has been calculated
for different particle size and concentration by (1).
Fig.3. Streamlines colored by velocity magnitude (m/s) for configuration
A and B

Fig.4. Sedimentation concentration (kg/m3) in the bottom, a): A-case 1, b): B-case 1 in the right side of inlet, c): B-case 1in x flow direction

Fig.5. trap efficiency for different particle size and concentration

Nt : nombre of sediments traped on the botton
Ni : nombre of sediment injected in the inlet
Fig. 5 presents trap efficiency of each particle size and
suspension concentration for standard configuration and
modified configuration. As can be observed, sedimentation
efficiency increase with increasing particle size. Likewise,
increasing particles concentration improve particles settling
in the bottom. Therfore, the difference between
sedimentation efficiency of standard configuration (A) and
modified configuration (B) tends to be attenuated when
particle size increase, from 12% to 0% for particles
concentration of 3kg/m3, and 16% to 0% for particles
concentration of 10kg/m3.
III. CONCLUSION
In the present paper, numerical simulations are
performed for different particle size and sediment
concentration. Moreover, another inlet and outlet
configuration was tested. It was found that changing inlet
and outlet location of the tank can have a pronounced effect
on flow pattern. In fact, symmetry on the tank tends to be
lost in the standard configuration when particle size and
concentration increase in contrast to modified configuration
flow pattern seems the same in spit of changing suspension
parameters. In the other hand, the proposed configuration
improves trap efficiency especially for fine particles.
Nevertheless, when particles diameter and concentration
increase, trap efficiency is similar for all configurations.
Finally, the effect of changing inlet and outlet on the
sedimentation efficiency can be justified by : increasing
hydraulic efficiency i.e. water resides more on the tank
concequently particles have sufficient time to settle on the
bottom. Feeding near to wall helped to strengthen particles
settling.
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