Skyler Erikson, Lilly Mendoza, Natalie Mottl, Lishan Zhu
Abstract:
The Fall 2015 EStaRS team reworked the lab scale setup of the EStaRS filter to work without a large pool to preserve lab space. The team then finished the orifice inlet implementation that was begun in Spring 2015, and provided an operating procedure for both filtration and backwash to avoid trapping sand in the inlets during the transition. The biggest takeaway from the operating procedure is that orifices can be operated successfully as long as the backwash transition does not create a drastic pressure change. Slowly closing the gate valve on the backwash siphon provides a gradual change and does not trap sand in the inlets. This procedure was the result of numerous inlet cloggings, and thus the team also devised a method for unclogging inlets without disassembling the filter. The team also implemented a pressure sensor to track headloss accumulation through the filter bed in the entrance tank. This pressure sensor was used to measure a clean bed headloss which is very close to the design clean bed headloss.
