Development of a modelling tool to perform hydrodynamics coupled with biological processes in the secondary stage of wastewater treatment plants

Resumen

The main objective of this research work is to develop simulation models based on tools associated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and applied to wastewater treatment. The hydrodynamic effect of the internal elements, that govern the behavior of the fluidflow in the biological reactors coupled to biochemical models that reproduce the main mechanisms of the activated sludge process of a WWTP, has been investigated. In addition, specific submodels related to the process taking place in these tanks, the effect of fluid viscosity and the dynamics of the aeration process bubbles have been included. New approaches have been proposed to reduce the calculation time to obtain the performance at a reasonable computing cost. Work on the validation has been developed through experimental techniques and specific measurements at real scale in order to validate CFD models.