Preliminary treatment

•High turbidity water requires pre treatment in the form of

sedimentation, storage or filtration to reduce the suspended
solids.
• to reduce the chemical needed for coagulation
• Pre-treatment provides cheaper treatment.
•Slow Sand Filters require raw water turbidity below
30NTU.
•High turbidity waters require pre-treatment before slow
sand filtration.
Types of preliminary treatment
– Intakes

– Screens

– Grit removal (Plain sedimentation)

– Storage

– Infiltration galleries

– Silt trap
Intakes
• Intake structure is one way of achieving preliminary
treatment.
• The intakes should be located in such a way that
rolling debris at the bottom is prevented from entering
via the intake.
• Bar Screens are provided to screen out larger size
floating and suspended materials.

• Sometimes two filters are provided successively for

coarse and fine screening.
Type of intake
River Intake

Location

According to the Upstream side of city to get

type of source comparatively better quality of water

Components
River Intake
 Closed concrete or masonry well
 Pumps
 Rising main
 Entry ports with screens
Reservoir Intake

Located sufficiently inside the river

Canal Intake so that necessary demand of
water can be met in all seasons of
the year

Lake Intake Located slightly away from the

river bed when river bed is soft or
unstable
Reservoir Intake

According to the  It is constructed when the flow

type of source in the river is not guaranteed
throughout the year.

River Intake  A dam is constructed across

the river to store the water in
the reservoir so formed.

Reservoir Intake

Canal Intake Intake towers are separately

constructed in case of earthen dams
but in gravity dam it is constructed
inside the dam itself.
Lake Intake
Canal Intake

According to the
type of source

River Intake

Reservoir Intake

 For small town a nearby irrigation canal can be used

Canal Intake as the source of water.

 The intake well is generally located in the bank of

the canal.
Lake Intake
 Canal should be lines on upstream and downstream
side of the intake to prevent erosion of sides and
bed of canal.
lake Intake

According to the
type of source

River Intake

Reservoir Intake

 It is submersible intake.
Canal Intake
 These intakes are constructed in the
bed of the lake below the low water level
so as to draw water even in dry season.
Lake Intake
Example:

Design a bell mouth intake for a city of 80,000 persons drawing water from a
channel which runs for 10 hrs in a day with depth of 1.8m. Also calculate the
head loss in intake conduit if the treatment plant is ½ km away. Draw a net
sketch of the canal intake assume average consumption per person =150l/d.

Assume the velocity through the screen & the bell mouth to be less than 16
cm/s & 32 cm/s, respectively.
Bar screens
water
screening
Design of the bar screen channel (Approach Channel)
Example
 Grit removal

Sedimentation of grit is a form of pre-treatment that provides a

low velocity of flow through a tank. It is favourable in a tropical
climate due to high load of solid as a result of erosion by tropical
high intensity rain and the high temperature of the tropics.

•Removal of grit may be accomplished in grit chambers

•Grit chambers are designed to remove grit, consisting of sand,
gravel, cinders, or other heavy solid materials that have subsiding
velocities or specific gravities substantially greater than organic
materials
•Grit chamber is mostly located after the bar screens and before
the primary sedimentation tanks
 Purpose
•Sand and grit are hard, inorganic materials with abrasive
and erosive action, which brings a potential danger for
damaging subsequent machinery and piping, form depositon

There are 3 general types of grit chambers:

Horizontal- flow, of either rectangular or square
configuration, Aerated or vortex type

• design of grit chambers are commonly based on the removal

of grit particles having specific gravity of 2.65. (analysis
indicates grit range specific gravity of 1.3- 2.7)
Design of grit chambers
The calculation of grit chambers comprised the selection of
1. The horizontal flow velocity, Vh on the basis of the scouring velocity. E.g. Vh
0.3m/s

2. The surface loading, V0 on the basis of guiding values (based on the theoretically
predicted settling values or guiding values ) , Vo (for critical particle) is chosen
usually between 8.3 and 11.1 mm/s. (Tchobanoglous et al Vo=12.5- 19 mm/s, If
the specific gravity of the particles is less than 2.65, lower velocities should be
used).

3. One of the three dimensions, W,H or L selected, then the two remaining
dimensions are then fixed by the above equations. The so obtained depth is
increased with 0.2 to 0.3 to allow accumulation of the sand. The grit chamber is
to be emptied periodically. The yield may be estimated upon 5-12
lit/(year.inhabitant) for waste water.
Storage
Storage is very effective for high turbidity water. The detention time
is greater than for plain sedimentation tanks. For extremely turbid
waters annual average turbidity > 1000NTU storage provides the
best pre-treatment.
Advantages:
– Natural sedimentation
– Attenuation of sudden water quality fluctuation.
– Reduction in the number of pathogenic bacteria
– Improved reliability of supply
– Excessively turbid water can be diverted away.
The storage can be in the form of ponds or lagoons which are natural
or excavated in the ground, or in the form of man-made earth
dams.
• Capacity should make allowance for seepage and
evaporation.
• The bottom of the pond should be lined with impermeable
material.
• In order to minimize pollution the pond should be fenced

Table: storage effect on turbidity and E.coli

River Thames
Raw water Stored water
Turbidity 14 3.2
E-coli 20,000 100
(MPN/100)
 Infiltration gallery

• It is underground tunnel which have holes on its sides, used

for tapping underground water near river, lakes and stream.

• This type of treatment is used when the water depth is very

small and difficult to construct weir or dam to store water
due to the seepage of the water. Sedimentation of silt is the
main problem.
Infiltration gallery
 Silt trap

• This is a box like structure to remove particles

that have higher density than density of water
• END
Roughing filters