Settling characteristics of particles in a suspension of medium to high solids concentration

During the thickening process of sludges with intermediate to high solid concentrations three settling regimes are typically encountered, namely, zone, transition, and compression regimes. Recent studies have indicated that the validity of Kynch's formulation, which is the most widely used for sizing settling basins, is limited to the zone settling regime. His formulation is based on the solids mass balance equation and does not consider the role of the rising sediment at the bottom of the settling basin. This limitation is rectified in this study by using a dynamic equation, a second order non - linear partial differential equation for the effective pressure of the solid particles. The equation is solved by using the finite element method. The so obtained effective pressure is used with an appropriate constitutive relation for the volume fraction of solids, to determine the variation of the solids content within the deposited material, and the height of the falling mudline.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Civil Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Civil Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1992

Author dc:creator

• Papanicolaou, Athanasios N.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Diplas, Panayiotis

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Kibler, David F.
• Younos, Tamim

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05042010-020238

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/42478