Articles
HYDRODYNAMIC BEHAVIOUR OF THE UNDERDRAINS IN MICROIRRIGATION SAND MEDIA FILTERS USING CFD SOFTWARE
Article number
1008_10
Pages
85 – 89
Language
English
Abstract
The prediction of the pressure drop produced by sand media filters in clean condition has a practical interest as it will define the amount of head loss available for the retention process. The underdrain system in a sand filter is crucial to allow the water flow through the sand media preventing sand losses within the filtered water.
However an important part of the total pressure drop in commercial sand filters is due to the underdrain system which is undesirable because it increase energy requirements without contributing to the filtration process.
In this study a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software program, was used to compute pressure losses in different parts of a sand filter.
Six different numerical filter models of varying complexities were used to understand the hydraulic behaviour of the several filter elements and their importance in total pressure losses.
The simulation results show that 84.6% of these were caused by the sand bed and 15.4% were due to auxiliary elements (4.4% in the outlet and inlet pipes, and 11.0% in the underdrains). Simulation results with different models show the important role of the underdrain system in the hydraulic behaviour of the sand filter.
However an important part of the total pressure drop in commercial sand filters is due to the underdrain system which is undesirable because it increase energy requirements without contributing to the filtration process.
In this study a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software program, was used to compute pressure losses in different parts of a sand filter.
Six different numerical filter models of varying complexities were used to understand the hydraulic behaviour of the several filter elements and their importance in total pressure losses.
The simulation results show that 84.6% of these were caused by the sand bed and 15.4% were due to auxiliary elements (4.4% in the outlet and inlet pipes, and 11.0% in the underdrains). Simulation results with different models show the important role of the underdrain system in the hydraulic behaviour of the sand filter.
Authors
G. Arbat, J. Puig-Bargués, M. Duran-Ros, F. Ramírez de Cartagena, T. Pujol, L. Montoro, J. Barragán
Keywords
CFD, clogging, drip irrigation, filter nozzle, flow simulation
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