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Oxygen Transfer in High-Speed Surface Aeration Tank for Wastewater

Treatment: Full-Scale Test and Numerical Modeling

Article  in  Journal of Environmental Engineering · August 2009

DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0000023

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 Oxygen Transfer in High-Speed Surface Aeration Tank
for Wastewater Treatment: Full-Scale Test
and Numerical Modeling
Weidong Huang1; Chundu Wu2; and Weidong Xia3

Abstract: Oxygen transfer is one of the key processes in the bioreactor. Herein a computational fluid dynamics model for the oxygen
transfer in high-speed surface aeration tank has been developed and validated through a full-scale aeration test. The test results indicate
that the oxygen transfer mainly comes from the spray water in air and that the gas entrainment by the plunging of spray water and the
surface reaeration in the aeration tank contribute little to the total oxygen transfer in high-speed surface aerator. A simple method was
proposed to measure the oxygen transfer rate for high-speed surface aerator.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲EE.1943-7870.0000023
CE Database subject headings: Oxygen transfer; Mass transfer; Aeration; Reactors; Mathematical models; Computational fluid
dynamics technique; Wastewater management.

Introduction biological engineering. A good reactor model has to take account

Surface aeration tanks have been one of the most widely used
biological wastewater treatment systems for the past several de-
cades. In a surface aeration tank, dissolved oxygen 共DO兲 is sup-
plied by surface aerators, and activated sludge is mixed with
wastewater. Because of their inherent simplicity and reliability,
and their competitive oxygen transfer rate per unit of power input
under actual activated sludge systems, it is a popular choice for
biological wastewater treatment systems. High speed surface
aerators omit the gearbox and are applied widely in aquaculture
and wastewater treatment.
In the 1980s, “scooped” or “screwpeller” type of impellers has
been developed for high-speed surface aerators. It provides higher
water pumpage rates 共Mueller et al. 2002兲, and thus the aeration
efficiency has been improved greatly. Recently, Jenkinson et al.
共2000兲 studied the fluid flow in a small scale high-speed surface
aeration tank. Cancino et al. investigated 23 different rotors to
design a high efficiency high-speed surface aerator 共Cancino
2004a; Cancino et al. 2004兲 and formulated equations to describe
the aerator’s behavior using dimensional analysis 共Cancino
2004b兲. However, little progress has been made to understand the
oxygen transfer processes in a high-speed surface aeration tank.
Reactor modeling and simulation are two of the main tools in
developing new reactors and are widely used in chemical and
1
Associate Professor, College of Earth and Space Science, Univ. of
Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230026, China
共corresponding author兲. E-mail: huangwd@ustc.edu.cn
2
Professor, College of Environment, Jiangsu Univ., Zhengjiang,
Jiangsu Province 212013, China.
3
Professor, College of Engineering Science, Univ. of Science and
Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province 230026, China.
Note. This manuscript was submitted on April 22, 2008; approved on
November 12, 2008; published online on July 15, 2009. Discussion pe-
riod open until January 1, 2010; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Environmental
Engineering, Vol. 135, No. 8, August 1, 2009. ©ASCE, ISSN 0733-
9372/2009/8-684–691/$25.00.
of various complex processes, such as fluid flow, mixing, mass
transfer, and chemical and biological processes. In biological
wastewater treatment, dynamic simulation models have been
widely used in modeling and simulating the biological processes
within activated sludge systems, such as Activated Sludge Model
I, Activated Sludge Model II, and Activated Sludge Model III
developed by the International Water Association 共Gujer et al.
1995; Gujer et al. 1999; Henze et al. 1987; Henze et al. 1999兲.
But the dynamic model assumes a homogeneous flow and mixing
state in a bioreactor, so we cannot apply it to simulate the effects
of aerator on flow and distribution of DO, active sludge, and
organic pollutants in aeration tanks.
A more detailed mathematical treatment of the fluid dynamics,
mixing, and mass transfer as well as biological processes in the
reactor can be achieved by computational fluid dynamics 共CFD兲
technology. CFD technology has been widely used in chemical
reactor modeling for many years 共Ranade 2002兲. Some work has
been done with CFD to model bioreactors, such as the hybrid
multizonal CFD approach 共Bezzo et al. 2003兲.
Oxygen transfer in aeration tanks is one of the key processes
in aerobic biological treatment of wastewater. Recently, CFD
technology has been used to model the fluid flow and oxygen
transfer of rotating disks in oxidation ditch 共Littleton et al. 2001兲,
jet aerators in aerated lagoon 共Morchain et al. 2000兲, low speed
surface aeration tanks 共Dholakia 1998兲, gas bubbles in airlift
bioreactors 共Dhanasekharan et al. 2005兲, and monolith loop reac-
tors 共van Baten and Krishna 2004兲. A one-dimensional
convection-dispersion model has also been applied to aeration
processes 共Giovannettone and Gulliver 2008兲. In a high-speed
surface aeration tank, until recently, there is still lack of knowl-
edge about the distribution of DO.
Oxygen Transfer Mechanism of High-Speed Surface
Aerators
For surface aerators, according to Popel 共1984兲 and McWhirter et
al. 共1995兲, oxygen transfers into water through three modes, as

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 Fig. 2. Geometry and mesh of computation domain for the high-
speed surface aeration tank. Finite-volume mesh with 105,182 hexa-
hedral cells for the flow geometry of 9 ⫻ 9 ⫻ 4.65 m dimension.

kLa = QE/V⬘ + kLSaS 共7兲

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of oxygen transfer process for surface
aerator in which V⬘ = volume of the aeration tank and C0 = initial concen-
tration of the DO of water in a tank. A nonlinear regression analy-
sis of experimental Ct versus time data was used to obtain the best
shown in Fig. 1. The first is through the gas water interface of statistical fit of the experimental data to Eq. 共5兲. Thus the values
spray water in air; the second is surface water reaeration due to of kLa, Cs, and C0 were determined solely from a statistical analy-
the constant movement and continuous surface renovation; and sis of the experimental data.
the third is air entrainment by the spray water plunging. In this study, full-scale measurements of the DO in a rectan-
According to the oxygen transfer model of the low speed sur- gular high-speed surface aeration tank were performed. Addition-
face aerator 共McWhirter et al. 1995兲, the oxygen transfer rate at ally, numerical simulation of the same process in the aeration tank
any moment through liquid spray in the air can be given as fol- under the same condition was carried out. The full-scale experi-
lows: mental and numerical simulation results were compared. We have
OTRsp = QE共CDS − Ct兲 共1兲 incorporated the oxygen transfer process to construct a valid mass
transfer model for high-speed surface aeration tank in wastewater
where Q = spray water rate; CDS = equilibrium DO level at the wet- treatment. In our knowledge, this is the first time that CFD mod-
bulb temperature of the atmospheric air; Ct = DO concentration of eling technique has been applied to simulating DO distribution in
aeration tank at the moment of spraying; and E = aeration effi- the high-speed surface aeration tank.
ciency of spray water in air and defined as follows 共McWhirter et
al. 1995兲:
Cd − Ct Full-Scale Aeration Test
E= 共2兲
CDS − Ct The experiments were performed in a rectangular tank with di-
where Cd = DO concentration of the spray water at the moment of mensions of 9 ⫻ 9 ⫻ 5 m 共Fig. 2兲. A high-speed surface aerator
plunging and E and CDS = constant for any given surface aerator 共Fig. 3兲 floated on the water surface at the center of the tank. Tap
under a constant set of operating conditions. They must be deter- water was introduced into the tank to let the water depth reach to
mined through experiment.
For the surface water reaeration and gas entrainment by the
plunging water, the oxygen mass transfer rate can be described as
follows 共McWhirter et al. 1995兲:
OTRSF = kLSAS共CLS − Ct兲 共3兲
where CLS = DO equilibrium level at the temperature of the water
in the tank.
The overall oxygen transfer rate with surface aerators can now
be expressed as follows 共McWhirter et al. 1995兲:
dCt
V⬘ = QE共CDS − Ct兲 + kLsAs共CLS − Ct兲 共4兲
dt
Integration of Eq. 共4兲 then yields
Ct = Cs − 共Cs − C0兲exp共− kLat兲 共5兲
where
CDSQE/V⬘ + kLSaSCLS
Cs = 共6兲 Fig. 3. Diagram of a high-speed floating surface aerator
QE/V⬘ + kLSaS

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 Table 1. Summary of Full-Scale High-Speed Surface Aerator Test Con-
ditions and Performance Data
Test condition and performance parameter Test result
Tank area 共m兲 9.0⫻ 9.0
Tank water depth 共m兲 4.65
Liquid volume 共m3兲 376.65
Aerator radius r 共m兲 0.133
13.0 共start of test兲,
Bulk liquid temperature 共°C兲 13.0 共end of test兲
12.9 共start of test兲,
Air wet-bulb temperature 共°C兲 13.0 共end of test兲
Barometric pressure 共mm Hg兲 760
CDS共mg/ L兲 10.53
CLS共mg/ L兲 10.52
Fig. 4. Planform of DO meter locations 共A and B兲 and aerator ar- Spray trajectory radius R 共m兲 3.97
rangement in the aeration tank Height of spray trajectory Y 共m兲 0.39
E 共dimensionless兲 0.95
Va 共m/s兲 2.765
4.65 m. The mass transfer coefficient was measured by the Vr 共m/s兲 7.085
unsteady-state oxygen absorption method 共ANSI/ASCE 1992兲. Q 共L/s兲 302.5
The tap water in the tank was deoxygenated by chemical reaction Note: Test date: 2004-11-9.
with sodium sulfite using cobalt chloride as the reaction catalyst.
The DO concentration in two positions of the tank was simulta-
neously measured with two DO meters. The amount of dissolved
sodium sulfite and cobalt chloride is too small to alter the level of
the saturated DO in water. was introduced into the numerical simulation through a boundary
The spray water flow rate was determined through measuring condition of the saturated DO concentration.
the velocity of the inlet duct of the surface aerator with a flow Third, the oxygen transfer by the air entrainment was ignored.
meter. The DO concentration of spray water just before it filled It has been shown that the air entrainment by plunging water is
into the aeration tank was measured with DO meter at the start of negligible compared to the total oxygen transfer rate in the case of
the aeration test. This was accomplished by filling a dish with weir aeration 共Huang 2006兲. In a high-speed surface aerator, the
spray water at the filling position. At the same time, the DO in the liquid jets partially break into droplets 共Mueller et al. 2002兲 and
aeration tank was also measured. The wet-bulb temperature above spend more time in gas than in the case of weir aeration to en-
the aeration tank and the temperature of water in the aeration tank hance its aeration under the same plunging speed. This implies
were recorded at the start and end of the aeration test. that the oxygen transfer rate through the spray water in air in-
In the aeration test, two DO meters were placed at Position A creases such that the third oxygen transfer process through the
and Position B, as shown in Fig. 4. In Position A, the meter was entrainment of air by the spray water plunging into the tank can
set at the water depth of 3.0 m and a distance of 0.6 m to the side be ignored.
wall at the vertical symmetry plane of the tank; in Position B, the
meter was set at the water depth of 0.5 m with distances of 1.2
and 2.25 m to the two side walls, respectively. The floating sur- Numerical Model
face aerator floated on the water surface at the center of the tank.
A summary of the overall test conditions is provided in Table 1. A single phase three-dimensional 共3D兲 CFD model was employed
for fluid flow simulation. The Navier-Stokes equations with stan-
dard ␬-␧ turbulent model were solved. The part of space occupied
Models by the high-speed surface aerator was excluded from the compu-
tation domain, and the effects of the aerator including oxygen
We simplify the oxygen transfer processes in aeration tanks as transfer were introduced into the computation through boundary
convection and diffusion processes in the liquid phase. The oxy- condition.
gen transfer process of high-speed surface aerators is similar to The oxygen transfer, which is controlled by the liquid side
the processes in low speed surface aerators and weir aeration. We convection and diffusion, can be formulated mathematically as
model three oxygen transfer processes in different ways. follows:
First, the oxygen transfer effects were introduced into our

冉 冊 冉 冊
model through boundary condition after the aeration efficiency
and flow rate of spray water were determined experimentally. Our ⳵C ⳵C ⳵C ⳵C ⳵ 2C ⳵ 2C ⳵ 2C
␳ + ␮x + ␮y + ␮z =D + + +S
model does not include oxygen transfer processes of spray water ⳵t ⳵x ⳵y ⳵z ⳵ x2 ⳵ y 2 ⳵ z2
in air. 共8兲
Second, the surface water reaeration was also introduced into
the computation through boundary condition. In the present study, where C represents the concentration of DO in the reactor; D
it was assumed that oxygen transferred across the gas liquid in- = diffusion coefficient; S = inner source and is set to zero, for the
terface very quickly, so that the liquid near the interface was oxygen transfer by the entrainment air was ignored as discussed
saturated with the oxygen. The process of surface water reaeration before.

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 Fig. 6. Projection of the umbrella spray liquid velocities in the hori-
zontal plane. O: the center of the aerator; A: position of the spray
liquid drops to the tank; B: position of the spray liquid leaving the
aerator; and C: line BC is perpendicular to line OA.

Fig. 5. Front cross-sectional view of a high-speed surface aerator

t= 冑 2共Y − H兲
g
+ 冑 2Y
g
共11兲

liquid spray umbrella trajectory. R: the flight distance of the spray From Fig. 6, the flight distance R of the spray water across
water; H: the height of the spray nozzle above the water surface; Y: atmosphere can be calculated as
the height of the spray water; and r: radius of propeller.
R = 冑共r + Vrt兲2 + 共Vtt兲2 共12兲
It is difficult to measure Vr and Vt separately. However, as R Ⰷ r,
Computation Method for two extreme cases, one is Vr = 0 and another is Vt = 0, the
horizontal velocity Vh in the plunging position of the spray water,
The flow and oxygen transfer computation employed the Fluent 6
which is equal to the horizontal initial velocity of the spray water,
version code. This code uses the finite volume for the discretiza-
is not significantly variable in the actual high-speed surface aera-
tion of the Navier-Stokes equations. The standard ␬-␧ model was
tor. In this investigation, H = 0.06 m, Y = 0.39 m, R = 4.05 m, and
used to solve the turbulent flow, and the initial grid generated for
r = 0.133 m, so when Vr = 0, Vh = Vt = 7.33 m / s, and when Vt = 0,
the calculation was 50⫻ 50⫻ 30 for 3D simulation with a bound-
Vh = Vr = 7.08 m / s. All other cases should fall into the above
ary layer grid. It is self-adapted with the Fluent 6 code which
range.
allows the resulting variation to be less than 5% for different grid
The direction of the spray water velocity at the plunging po-
sizes.
sition can be represented with an angle to the radial direction
共angle BAO as shown in Fig. 6兲. From Fig. 6, angle BAO can be
deduced as
Boundary Condition
BC r sin共BOC兲
Because the propeller was well separated from the aeration tank sin共BAO兲 = = 共13兲
BA BA
with a cylindrical metal pipe, the complicated flow field around
the rotating propeller was excluded from the computation domain,
and it was used as the boundary condition through the measure- V tt
sin共BOC兲 = 共14兲
ments. The inlet of the high-speed surface aerator was used as the R
outflow of the computation domain. The spray water dropping
into the tank was used as the velocity inlet. A slip wall condition
r V tt r
was imposed on the free surface, for the high-speed surface aera- sin共BAO兲 = ⱕ Ⰶ1 共15兲
tion experiments showed that the free surface was lightly dis- R 冑共Vrt兲2 + 共Vtt兲2 R
turbed. A standard wall condition was imposed on the wall of the Thus, the direction of the spray water in the plunging position
tank. is slightly different from the radial direction, even when the initial
When the water sprays into the air by the high-speed surface radial velocity is zero. In the test case, BAO ⬍ 1.91°. Previous
aerator, the retention time of the flow water in the air is very short observations indicate that no swirl flow exists in high-speed sur-
共less than 1 s兲. Hence the energy consumed in the air was ignored, face aeration tanks 共Mueller et al. 2002兲. It agrees with the
with the spray water velocity at the plunging position determined present analysis. Then the velocity of the spray water at the
approximately by the dropping position of the sprayed water. plunging position was calculated as
The initial total velocity of the spray water 关V兴 can be ex-
pressed to be the function of axial velocity 共Va兲, radial velocity
共Vr兲, and tangential velocity 共Vt兲 as follows: Vr⬘ = 共R − r兲/ 冉冑 2共Y − H兲
g
+ 冑 冊 2Y
g
共16兲

V2 = V2a + Vr2 + V2t 共9兲

Vt⬘ = 0 共17兲
From Fig. 5, the initial axial velocity Va can be described as
共McWhirter et al. 1995兲
V⬘a = 冑2gY 共18兲
Va = 冑2g共Y − H兲 共10兲
They were introduced into the computation domain as boundary
where H = height of the spray nozzle above the water surface and condition in the range of the plunging position. No other inlet was
Y = height of the spray water. The time of flight of the spray water used for CFD computation. The DO concentration of the spray
in air is calculated as follows: water plunged into the aeration tank was calculated as

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Fig. 7. Velocity vectors in the aeration tank 共unit: m/s兲 with high-
speed surface aerator. Tank dimension: 9 ⫻ 9 ⫻ 5 m; flow rate of
aerator: 302.5 L/s. 共a兲: Along the symmetry plane of cross section; 共b兲
along the depth of 0.5-m horizontal plane.
Fig. 8. Velocity contour in the aeration tank 共unit: m/s兲 with high-
speed surface aerator. Tank dimension: 9 ⫻ 9 ⫻ 5 m; flow rate of
aerator: 302.5 L/s. 共a兲 Along the symmetric plane of cross section; 共b兲
along the horizontal plane at a depth of 0.5 m.

Cd = Ct + E共CDS − Ct兲 共19兲

determine the values of C0 and kLa. To avoid the effects of re-
It was also incorporated into the computation domain as boundary sidual sodium sulfite 共Giovannettone and Gulliver 2008兲, less
condition for oxygen transfer simulation. than 20% saturated DO data were discarded in the data analysis.
The experimental results are shown in Column 1 and Column 2 of
Table 2.
Results and Discussion

Flow and Distribution of DO in Aeration Tanks

We first apply the CFD model to simulate the flow and DO dis-
tribution in aeration tanks. Fig. 7 shows velocity vectors in the
aeration tank along the symmetric plane of cross section and the
horizontal plane at a depth of 0.5 m. Fig. 8 gives the velocity
contour in the aeration tank along the same planes. It can be seen
that a recirculating flow dropped down along the side wall and
rose in center part of the tank. The partial rising flow entered the
surface aerator to be sprayed into the air and returned to the tank,
and other parts of the flow rose to the water surface and recircu-
lated in the tank. It is similar to the previous results of low speed
surface aeration tanks 共Dholakia 1998兲 and high-speed surface
aeration tanks 共Jenkinson et al. 2000兲.
Fig. 9 shows the DO distribution contour in the aeration tank
at an aeration time of 33 min along the vertical symmetric plane
of cross section and the horizontal plane at a depth of 0.5 m. It
demonstrates a nonhomogeneous distribution of DO from a clean
water aeration test in the high-speed surface aeration tank at an
aeration time of 33 min. As noted by Grady et al. 共1999兲, deni-
trification can be observed in surface aeration tanks, and they
concluded that the DO does not distribute uniformly in surface
aeration tanks. Our results agree with the Grady’s view.
Fig. 9. DO distribution contour in the aeration tank 共unit: g DO/g
water兲 at 33 min after the start of aeration. 共a兲 Along the symmetry
Oxygen Transfer Rate from DO Concentration Tests plane of cross section; 共b兲 along the horizontal plane at a depth of 0.5
The DO concentration versus time data for two test positions in m. 共Water surface of the aeration tank is saturated with DO, which is
the aeration tank were recorded and analyzed using Eq. 共5兲 to indicated as white color.兲

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Table 2. Parameter of the Oxygen Transfer Model of McWhirter et al. 共1995兲 of Surface Aerator for Full-Scale Test 共Determined from DO Concentration
versus Time Data兲
Position A
Parameter 共measured value兲
C0 共mg/L兲 0.19
CS 共mg/L兲 10.53
CLS 共mg/L兲 10.52
CDS 共mg/L兲 10.53
kLa 共L/min兲 0.0492
kLSaS 共L/min兲 0.0034
QE / V⬘ 共L/min兲 0.0458
In the numerical simulation of oxygen transfer in high-speed
surface aeration tanks, the DO concentrations of the positions at
different aeration times were calculated through unsteady-state
simulation. At first, a steady state was used to calculate the flow
field, and then an unsteady-state calculation was implemented to
predict the DO distribution in the aeration tank. The predicted DO
concentration at Position A and Position B at different aeration
times were recorded during simulation and analyzed using Eqs.
共5兲–共7兲 after the simulations; the parameters obtained are shown
at Column 3 and Column 4 of Table 2.
The parameter of kLSaS represents the contribution of oxygen
transfer which comes from the surface reaeration and gas entrain-
ment by the plunging of spray water during the aeration tests. In
Table 2, the relative rates of oxygen transfer within the liquid
spray mass transfer zone and aeration tank zone were compared
for the high-speed surface aerator. The values of kLSaS are only
0.4–7.4% of the QE / V 共Table 2兲. This means that about 92.5–
99.6% of the overall oxygen transfer comes from the liquid spray
in air and only a small percentage of oxygen transfer comes from
the mass transfer in the aeration tank including the surface reaera-
tion and gas entrainment by the plunging of spray water in the
full-scale tests.
In a previous full-scale test of low speed surface aerator, the
mass transfer in aeration tanks contributes 63–66% of the overall
oxygen transfer rate 共McWhirter et al. 1995兲. But the propeller of
low speed surface aerator is not separated from the tank with a
shell, and thus it is difficult to measure the flow rate of spray
water precisely 共McWhirter et al. 1995兲. The mass transfer in
aeration tank is the main transfer zone in low speed surface aera-
tor 共McWhirter et al. 1995兲. In the high-speed surface aerator of
this test, the results indicated that the surface reaeration mass
transfer contributed less than 7% to the overall oxygen transfer
rate, as shown in Table 2, so surface reaeration will contribute
little to overall oxygen transfer in aeration tanks of the high-speed
surface aerator. It is known that underwater mixers produce the
similar flow fields to low speed surface aerators, but they provide
low oxygen transfer rates. In diffused aeration system, several
studies have also shown that the surface oxygen transfer is not as
important as the bubble oxygen transfer 共DeMoyer et al. 2003;
McWhirter and Hutter 1989; Wilhelms and Martin 1992兲.
New Methods to Measure Oxygen Transfer Rate of
High-Speed Surface Aerators
As the oxygen transfer of spray water in air is the main oxygen
transfer process in high-speed surface aerators, the oxygen trans-
fer rate for high-speed surface aerators can be calculated approxi-
mately as
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Position B Position A Position B
共measured value兲 共CFD prediction兲 共CFD prediction兲
0.28 0 0
10.53 10.53 10.53
10.52 10.52 10.52
10.53 10.53 10.53
0.0460 0.0469 0.0467
0.0002 0.0011 0.0009
0.0458 0.0458 0.0458
OTR = KLaV⬘共CDS − C0兲 ⬇ QECDS 共20兲
where C0 should be zero. According to formula 共2兲, the aeration
efficiency of the spray water in air E can be determined when the
DO concentration of water in tanks, the wet-bulb temperature of
the atmospheric air, and the DO concentration of the spray water
at the dropping position were measured at any aeration moment.
The flow rate of the spray water was measured with a flow meter.
Then the oxygen transfer rate of high-speed surface aerator can be
determined through formula 共20兲. It is a quicker test method than
the standard method to measure the oxygen transfer rate of high-
speed surface aerators, as the standard method for oxygen transfer
rate measurement in clean water usually requires approximately
1-h measurement of the DO concentrations at no less than three
positions in aeration tanks 共ANSI/ASCE 1992兲.
From formula 共20兲, if we increase the flow rate of the spray
water, the oxygen transfer rate of high-speed surface aerator may
increase; it agrees with previous scooped or screwpeller type of
impellers which provide higher water pumpage rates and have
higher aeration efficiency 共Mueller et al. 2002兲.
As pointed out by McWhirter et al. 共1995兲, the temperature of
the spray water is significantly different from the bulk liquid tem-
perature and the oxygen transfer driving force; the saturated DO
in spray water CDS is influenced by the temperature and humidity
of air 共McWhirter et al. 1995兲. Thus the temperature and the
humidity of the air above the aeration tank may have significant
impacts upon the oxygen transfer rate of high-speed surface aera-
tors.
Validation of CFD Model
We compare the simulated DO concentration of CFD model to the
experimental results at two positions of the aeration tank in dif-
ferent times. Figs. 10 and 11 show the comparison of DO con-
centrations at different aeration times predicted by CFD at
Position A and Position B, respectively, with full-scale test values.
It can be seen from Figs. 10 and 11 that CFD simulations can
predict rather well about the DO variance at different aeration
times in high-speed surface aeration tanks.
Generally, the oxygen transfer process in aeration is a mass
transfer process between the gas and the liquid phases. A two
phase CFD model should be used and validated. In our model, as
the spray water in air is the main oxygen transfer process, we
determined experimentally the flow rate of the spray water and
the aeration efficiency in spray water zone, so the gas liquid oxy-
gen transfer process was solved experimentally, and only the con-
vection and diffusion equation in the water phase was solved to
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING © ASCE / AUGUST 2009 / 689
 the spray water in air to obtain the total oxygen transfer rate in
high-speed surface aerators.
A convection and diffusion model for oxygen transport in
high-speed surface aeration tanks has been developed based on
the experimental results that oxygen transfer was mainly through
the spray water for a high-speed surface aerator. The model pre-
dictions showed good agreement with experimental data in DO
time variance in two positions of the aeration tank.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the fund from the Ministry of Sci-
Fig. 10. Comparison of DO concentrations predicted by the CFD
ence and Technology of the People’s Republic of China 共Grant
model at Position A and different aeration times with full-scale test
No. 2006BAC19B02兲. The writers are grateful to Mr. Chengfa
values
Xu, Anhui GuoZhen Environmental Protection Sci. and Tech. Co.
Ltd. for his help in experiments; to Professor Binjia Xiao of In-
stitute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for help-
simulate the DO distribution in the aeration tank in our CFD ful discussions; and to Mr. Xiaoyu Yang of Shanghai Hi-key
model. The convection and diffusion model has been studied Technology Corporation Ltd. for technical supports.
rather extensively, and a numerical method has been validated in
the early CFD research 共Patankar 1980兲. So our model can be
used to predict the distribution of DO in the aeration tank at Notation
different times.
The present model builds a foundation for the successful CFD The following symbols are used in this paper:
model application in predicting the aeration performance of high- C0 ⫽ initial DO concentration in the aeration tank;
speed surface aeration tanks for wastewater treatment, provide CDS ⫽ saturated concentration of DO at the wet-bulb
insights into the oxygen transfer characteristics, and design opti- temperature of air;
mization of high-speed surface aerators. It can be used as a new Cd ⫽ DO concentration of spray water at the
tool to study the oxygen transportation characteristics, scale up, dropping position;
and optimization of high-speed surface aeration tanks. CLS ⫽ saturated concentration of DO in the aeration
tank;
CS ⫽ saturated concentration of DO for the overall
Conclusions aeration test;
Ct ⫽ DO concentration of the aeration tank at
A quick and simple method for the measurement of the oxygen aeration time t;
transfer rate in high-speed surface aerators has been developed in E ⫽ aeration efficiency of spray water;
our study. The experimental results indicate that oxygen transfer g ⫽ gravitational acceleration;
mainly comes from the liquid spray mass transfer zone in a high- H ⫽ the height of the spray nozzle above the
speed surface aerator. The gas entrainment by the plunging of water surface;
spray water and the surface reaeration contribute little to the total kLa ⫽ overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient
oxygen transfer. So we can measure the oxygen transfer rate of 共L/s兲;
kLSAS ⫽ surface reaeration mass transfer coefficient in
the aeration tank 共L/s兲;
kLSaS ⫽ volumetric mass transfer coefficient of surface
reaeration in the aeration tank 共L/s兲;
OTRSF ⫽ oxygen transfer rate in the aeration tank;
OTRsp ⫽ oxygen transfer rate of spray water at air;
Q ⫽ flow rate of spray water;
R ⫽ the radius of spray water umbrella;
r ⫽ radius of propeller;
S ⫽ DO source term in the aeration tank;
t ⫽ aeration time;
V ⫽ velocity of spray water;
Va ⫽ axial velocity of spray water;
Vh ⫽ horizontal velocity;
Vr ⫽ radial velocity of spray water;
Vt ⫽ tangent velocity of spray water;
V⬘ ⫽ volume;
Va⬘ ⫽ axial velocity of spray water at the plunging
Fig. 11. Comparison of DO concentrations predicted by the CFD position;
model at Position B and different aeration times with full-scale test Vr⬘ ⫽ radial velocity of spray water at the plunging
values position;

690 / JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING © ASCE / AUGUST 2009

Downloaded 03 Sep 2009 to 211.86.159.90. Redistribution subject to ASCE license or copyright; see http://pubs.asce.org/copyright
 Vt⬘ ⫽ tangent velocity of spray water at the
plunging position; and
Y ⫽ height of spray water.
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