Effect of the Location of the Inlet and Outlet Structures on Short-Circuiting: Experimental Investigation

Abstract

The location of the inlet and outlet structures in a treatment plant (e.g., waste stabilization pond) may affect its hydraulic efficiency by increasing short-circuiting. Therefore, in this paper, the effect of the location of inlet and outlet structures was investigated in three laboratory channels of different lengths. Nine different combinations of inlet and outlet locations were considered for each channel under varying rates of flow. Results showed that the placement of the inlet and outlet structures close to the surface and the bottom of the pond, respectively, gave the minimum value of short-circuiting. This location was, therefore, judged to be the optimum among the nine combinations considered. The short-circuiting index was found to increase both with the dispersion number and the actual flow velocity, giving correlation coefficients of 0.3186 to 0.9258 and 0.8057 to 0.9972, respectively. Although minimization of short-circuiting will result in higher hydraulic efficiency, it may not necessarily result in higher effluent quality unless the temporal and vertical fluctuations of the water column are also considered.