Assessment of Hydrodynamic Separators for Storm-Water Treatment
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 5
Abstract
Hydrodynamic separators are proprietary underground devices designed to remove floatable debris (e.g., leaves, trash, oil) and to remove suspended solids from storm-water runoff by sedimentation. They are designed for storm-water treatment in urban areas to meet tight space constraints. Limited data on the suspended solids removal performance of installed devices are available, and existing data are questionable because of the problems associated with assessment by monitoring. The objectives of our research are to: (1) investigate the feasibility and practicality of field testing to assess the performance of hydrodynamic separators as underground storm-water treatment devices; (2) evaluate the effects of sediment size and storm-water discharge on the performance of six devices from different manufacturers; and (3) develop a universal approach for predicting the performance of a device for any given application. In the field tests, a controlled and reproducible synthetic storm event containing sediment of a well defined size distribution and concentration was fed to a precleaned device. The captured sediment was then removed, dried, sieved, and weighed. To assess the performance of the devices, suspended sediment removal efficiency was related to a Péclet number, which accounts for two major processes that control performance: (1) settling of particles; and (2) turbulent diffusion or mixing of particles. After analyzing the data, all devices showed similar behavior, therefore, a three-parameter performance function was proposed for all devices. Performance functions were developed from the result of the field tests and parallel testing of two other full-scale devices in the laboratory. The performance functions can be used to determine the efficiency of the tested devices and to improve the selection and sizing of hydrodynamic separators and the assessment of their overall performance after installation.
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Acknowledgments
The writers thank the Minnesota Local Road Research Board (Jon Haukaas, Technical Liaison), the Minnesota Metropolitan Council (Jack Frost, Project Manager), BaySaver Technologies, Inc., and Royal Environmental Systems for providing funding for this project. They also thank Bruce C. Wilson of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for his encouragement and support of the research. In addition, Dave Olson and the City of New Brighton, Scott Anderson and the city of Saint Louis Park, Ryan Bluhm of Master Engineering, Jon Haukaas and the City of Fridley, and Rich Profaiser and Jeff Grant and the City of Minneapolis are all owed a debt of gratitude for donating the use of city vacuum trucks and maintenance crew time for clean out of the storm-water manholes prior to the commencement of field testing. Jon Haukaas and the City of Fridley Fire Department provided further assistance with their donation of of fire hose and hydrant fittings for project use. Andrew Sander, Joshua Brand, Adam Markos, Geoffrey Fischer, and Andrew Fyten assisted with fieldwork and laboratory analysis, and Ben Erickson produced an instructional video on field testing. Project Technical Advisory Panel members were Jon Haukaas (City of Fridley), Jack Frost (Metropolitan Council), Alan Rindels (MnDOT), Marilyn Jordahl-Larson (MnDOT), Scott Carlstrom (MnDOT), Sue McDermott (City of Mendota Heights), and Judy Sventek (Metropolitan Council). Finally, the cooperation by proprietary device manufacturers Environment21, CONTECH, and Imbrium Systems, Inc. is appreciated.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 5 • May 2009
Pages: 383 - 392
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 24, 2007
Accepted: Oct 18, 2008
Published online: May 1, 2009
Published in print: May 2009
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