Modeling of Wastewater Treatment Processes with HydroSludge

TL;DR

HydroSludge is a user-friendly framework that simplifies CFD modeling of wastewater treatment processes, enhancing efficiency and accessibility for operators and researchers.

Contribution

The paper introduces HydroSludge, a novel framework that streamlines CFD simulation workflows for wastewater treatment, reducing complexity and learning curve.

Findings

HydroSludge improves modeling efficiency for wastewater processes.

The framework facilitates data preprocessing and meshing for CFD.

HydroSludge's interface enhances usability for practitioners.

Abstract

The pressure for Water Resource Recovery Facilities (WRRF) operators to efficiently treat wastewater is greater than ever because of the water crisis, produced by the climate change effects and more restrictive regulations. Technicians and researchers need to evaluate WRRF performance to ensure maximum efficiency. For this purpose, numerical techniques, such as CFD, have been widely applied to the wastewater sector to model biological reactors and secondary settling tanks with high spatial and temporal accuracy. However, limitations such as complexity and learning curve, prevent extending CFD usage among wastewater modeling experts. This paper presents HydroSludge, a framework that provides a series of tools that simplify the implementation of the processes and workflows in a WRRF. This work leverages HydroSludge to preprocess existing data, aid the meshing process, and perform CFD simulations. Its intuitive interface proves itself as an effective tool to increase the efficiency of wastewater treatment