Model comparisons for tracer experiments at a clear water storage tank

Abstract

A fluoride tracer experiment was conducted to investigate mixing processes and residence times in a cylindrical clear water storage tank at the Stromlo Water Treatment Plant, Canberra, ACT. Four different modelling techniques have been used to simulate the experimental results: computational fluid dynamics (CFD), a single continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR), two CSTRs in series, and a series/parallel combination of two CSTRs (NM). Flow of a conservative tracer through the tank has been simulated at the rated flow from the works using the PHOENICS (CFD) program. The CFD simulation agrees closely with the measured fluoride concentrations and requires no fitted parameters. The agreement with the experimental data for NM is comparable with the CFD and a little better than two CSTRs in series. The poorest agreement was obtained with a single CSTR model.