Hydraulic feasibility of discharging sludge from a local WWTP to a centralized WWTP through sewage network lines

Abstract

Over the recent years, due to the increase in the population covered by local wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), upgrading the existing treatment plants needs special attention more than ever. One of the suggested solutions removal the existing sludge treatment units in local WWTP and transfer the sludge to a centralized WWTP. The present study was developed to investigate the hydraulic feasibility of sludge transfer from Shahrak-e-GharbWWTP as a local treatment plant to South Tehran sewage treatment plant in Tehran. To this end, at first, a map containing descriptive information and hydraulic characteristics related to the sewage transmission network between local and centralized WWTP was collected from the sewage company. This information was used to calculate the maximum capacity, current flow and draw the hydraulic profile of the sewage transmission line. Then, the transmission line profile was drawn using Manning's hydraulic model and SewerCAD v10.01 software. According to the obtained results, areas 1 and 3 with sewage line diameters of 1000 and 1400 mm did not have any special problem in terms of entering the sludge. Hydraulic analyzes showed that some lines in areas 2, 4, 5, and 6 suffered setbacks and crises after the increase of sludge, which require auxiliary lines. The results indicated that more than 85% of the sewage network lines have the ability to transfer the excess sludge of the local treatment plant, however, in 36 lines, mostly located in zones 2 and 6, with a diameter of 1200 and 2000 mm, there is a crisis of sewage filling and backflow. Therefore, in order to reduce hydraulic stresses in these lines, it was suggested to build an auxiliary line (bypass ring at the beginning and end of these lines).