4. Temperature-based Retention Time
Most sewer networks consist of gravity pipes, which rely on the natural slope of the landscape to convey waste-water, and pressure pipes, which are driven by a pump that pushes waste-water to higher located collection points. Anaerobic retention time (ART) is defined as the amount of time a given volume of waste-water resides in a pressure pipe before being discharged. Long retention times have been linked to an increase in the occurrence of unwanted biological and chemical processes, such as the formation of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) which is associated with odor, corrosion, and health problems. Retention time is most commonly determined using flow meters which can be very costly. In this project, I present a new method for determine retention times using temperature data.
Project Overview
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Collected waste-water temperature data using a SulfiLogger sensor from two different pressure pipes.
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Cleaned and analyzed the data.
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Found correlation between temperature changes and flow rate.
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Calculated reference retention times using flow meter data.
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Created an algorithm that could determine the retention times of a waste-water parcel in a pressure pipe using temperature data
Results
| Evaluation Metric: | —Dataset A | —Dataset B |
|---|---|---|
| RMSPE | 11% | 14% |
| R² | 0.97 | 0.75 |