chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333

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Chemical Engineering Research and Design
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ cher d
PDA experiments and CFD simulation of a lab-scale
oxidation ditch with surface aerators
Long Fan, Nong Xu, Zhiqiang Wang, Hanchang Shi

State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation & Pollution Control, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering,
Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
a b s t r a c t
Though hydrodynamic characteristic is an important parameter for the optimization of reactors, very little research
deals with the hydrodynamics of oxidation ditches. This paper focuses on the hydrodynamics of an oxidation ditch
from the point of view of both experiments and simulations. The three-dimensional ow eld in the oxidation ditch
aerated with surface aerators like inverse umbrella is simulated with computational uid dynamics (CFD). The two-
uid model and the standard k model are used for the turbulent solidliquid two-phase ow. The distributions of
liquid velocity and volume fraction of solid phase are obtained. Experiments are performed in a lab-scale oxidation
ditch with particle dynamic analyser (PDA). The comparison between simulations and PDA experiments conrms
that the results and the methods employed in this paper are reliable. The liquid and solid have similar ow velocity,
while the vertical velocity of solid phase is slightly lower than that of liquid. With the increase of aerator speed,
the velocity increases and solid phase disperses more evenly. The ow in the oxidation ditch has noticeable three-
dimensional features, especially between the circular channel and the straight channel. And solid phase is ready to
settle in these regions. All these results form the basis for the optimization and deep research of oxidation ditches.
2009 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: PDA experiment; CFD simulation; Oxidation ditch; Surface aerator
1. Introduction
Oxidation ditch is one of the widely used wastewater treat-
ment reactors. There are several different kinds of oxidation
ditches, such as integrative oxidation ditch, Orbal oxidation
ditch, Carrousel oxidation ditch. Correspondingly, there are
different aeration equipments, for example, rotating brush,
rotating disk, surface aerator. The common among them is
that they can bring oxygen into the oxidation ditch. The con-
centration of oxygen in the oxidation ditch changes with the
distance to the aeration equipment. Thus aerobic, anaerobic
and anoxic regions will appear in the oxidation ditch. With
the presence of these regions, wastewater could be claried
during the circulation in the oxidation ditch. Wastewater will
be puried only after circulating for a long time in the oxida-
tionditch, whichmakes oxidationditches different fromother
wastewater treatment reactors.
The ow character and hydrodynamic characteristics play
signicant roles in design and operation of oxidation ditches.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 62773095; fax: +86 10 62771472.

E-mail address: hanchang@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (H.C. Shi).
Received22 September 2008; Receivedinrevisedform20 July 2009; Accepted22 July2009
The commonly used design methods may be unsuitable for
oxidation ditches. For example, Gillot and Hduit (2000) exam-
ined the effect of air ow rate on oxygen transfer efciency
in clean water and under process conditions in an oxida-
tion ditch equipped with ne bubble membrane diffusers and
large blade slow speed mixers. They found that regrouping
the diffuser grids and applying a horizontal ow could lead to
signicant limitation in the impact of the air ow rate on the
oxygen transfer efciency. The special hydrodynamic charac-
teristics should be taken into account during the design of
oxidation ditches.
Hydrodynamic characteristics of oxidation ditches can be
obtained by simulation conveniently. Many literatures are
about the simulation of oxidation ditches (Stamou, 1997;
Furukawa et al., 1998; Stamou et al., 1999; Lesage et al., 2003;
Fayolle et al., 2007). But the mathematical models are usu-
ally biological, ignoring the hydrodynamics of these systems.
Considering only the biology of a wastewater treatment plant
(WWTP) is not sufcient to model the treatment system, since
0263-8762/$ see front matter 2009 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cherd.2009.07.013
24 chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333
Nomenclature
C
D
drag coefcient
c
2
constant in dissipation equation
c
j
constant in k equation
D diameter of the oxidation ditch (m)
d
1
large diameter of the taper (m)
d
2
short diameter of the taper, diameter of the
cylinder (m)
d
p
diameter of solid particles (m)
F
cd
drag force (N)
f
D
frequency of the scattered light (s
1
)
g acceleration of gravity (ms
2
)
H height of the oxidation ditch (m)
h height of the taper (m)
h
c
height of cylinder (m)
k turbulent kinetic energy (m
2
s
2
)
L length of the straight channel of the oxidation
ditch (m)
P pressure (kgm
1
s
2
)
Re Reynolds number (Re =d
p
j,/j)
S projected area (m
2
)
S

source term
U particle ow velocity (ms
1
)
u
x
velocity in x direction (ms
1
)
u
z
velocity in z direction (ms
1
)
x axis
y axis
z axis
Greek letters
volume fraction
, density (kgm
3
)
dissipation rate of the turbulent kinetic energy
(m
2
s
3
)
z wavelength (m)
o

constant in k equation
variable
half of the angle between two beams
j viscosity (kgm
1
s
1
)
j
t
turbulent viscosity (kgm
1
s
1
)
t viscous stress tensor inphase c or d (kgm
1
s
2
)
Subscripts
c continuous phase
d discrete phase
the activity of the microorganisms depends a lot on the mass
transfer of substrates and products. Consequently, knowledge
of the hydrodynamic behavior is needed for a possible model-
based optimization of the WWTP.
However, the inclusion of some equipments and
prepositive-unit makes the simulation of oxidation ditches
more complex. Besides, a literature review (Dudley, 1995;
von Sperling, 1990; Derco et al., 1994; Clercq et al., 1999)
shows that there is not yet consensus on the modeling
of the hydrodynamic behavior of oxidation ditches. Some
authors proposed relatively sophisticated models (Dudley,
1995; von Sperling, 1990). Others argued that the signicantly
higher computation time of a one-dimensional approach
was only justiable by design purposes and that either a
tank-in-series (Clercq et al., 1999) or a CSTR (continuous
stirred tank reactor) approach (Derco et al., 1994) produced
satisfactory results. For example, Clercq et al. (1999) did some
hydraulic research on oxidation ditches with tanks-in-series
model to simulate the mixing behavior and predict the overall
system response. Recently, computational uid dynamics
(CFD) has been used more commonly in wastewater treat-
ment due to the development of computer technology. Luo
et al. (2005) modeled the three-dimensional ow eld of
liquid in an integrative oxidation ditch aerated with brush.
In our former work (Fan and Shi, 2005), we simulated the
ow eld in a Carrousel oxidation ditch with surface aerator
simplied to a disk. Most of the above-mentioned litera-
tures only simulated the ow eld of liquid, without taking
into account the presence of other phases in the oxidation
ditch. In fact, there are liquid, solid or/and gas in oxidation
ditches. All of them contribute to and inuence the ow
in the oxidation ditch. It is essential to include gas or solid
in the simulation. Little et al. (2007) applied CFD into the
research of Orbal oxidation ditches to simulate the uid-ow
pattern and oxygen transfer. However, only single-phase
ow was simulated, oxygen concentration was introduced
into the uid ow as a scalar variable. Fayolle et al. (2007)
included gas in their study on aeration tanks equipped with
ne bubble diffusers and axial slow speed mixers. They
predicted ow and oxygen transfer characteristic based on
CFD.
The presences of solid, liquid and gas also make the mea-
surement of the ow characteristic in oxidation ditches very
difcult. For the measurement of multiphase ow, two kinds
of methods can be utilized. One disturbs the ow eld during
the measurement, such as sampling (Rhodes, 1992), capac-
itance method (Fasching, 1994) and hot lm Anemometry
(Tillenkamp and Loth, 2000). The other has no disturbance
on the ow eld, such as particle image velocimetry (PIV)
(Fan et al., 2005), laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) and par-
ticle dynamic analyser (PDA) (Zhu et al., 2004). They came
into being with the development of laser Doppler technology
and made it possible to measure the ow eld without any
disturbance. However, few experiments are about the hydro-
dynamic characteristics in oxidation ditches. To the best of
the authors knowledge, only Chen et al. (2006), Luo et al.
(2005), Fayolle et al. (2006) and Vermande et al. (2007) exper-
imented on the hydrodynamics of oxidation ditches. Chen
et al. (2006) mainly focused on the application of PIV using
cross-correlation method in oxidation ditches. They described
the ow phenomena in oxidation ditches qualitatively. Luo
et al. (2005) measured the velocity in an integrative oxida-
tion ditch with a rotating fan velocimetry. Fayolle et al. (2006)
did in situ measurements on axial liquid velocity, bubble
size and oxygen transfer coefcient. Vermande et al. (2007)
presented some results about the hydraulics and aeration
performance in a pilot-scale aerated basin. They only esti-
mated the horizontal water velocity by a ow meter Flo-Mate,
characterized gas phase and measured the oxygen transfer
coefcient by a bi-optical probe and oxygen probes, respec-
tively.
Therefore, it is necessary to research on the hydrodynamic
characteristic of the multiphase ow in oxidation ditches by
simulation and experiments. Toward this, the task of this
paper is to simulate the three-dimensional solidliquid two-
phase ow eld in an oxidation ditch aerated with surface
aerators with the help of CFD. The experiments performed in
the same oxidation ditch and measured with PDA will be used
to verify the simulations.
chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333 25
Fig. 1 The experimented oxidation ditch and the coordinates: (a) planform and (b) sideview.
Fig. 2 Denition of regions A1, B1, A2 and B2.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Experimental equipments and materials
The experiments are performed in a lab-scale oxidation ditch
with a height of 120mm which is designed according to that
in a wastewater treatment plant. The sketch of the lab-scale
oxidation ditch and the coordinates are shown in Fig. 1. The
oxidation ditch has no inlet and outlet, for Stamou (1993)
found that the inow and outow had little effect on the ow
eld in the whole ditch. To simplify, the straight channel is
divided into four regions by the bafe and the centerline of
the oxidation ditch: A1, B1, A2 and B2, as plotted in Fig. 2. B1 is
connected to A2 by the circular channel, as well as B2 and A1.
The uid leaving the circular channel enters regions A1 and
A2, while the uid in regions B1 and B2 ows toward the cir-
cular channel. Since the owin the region A1 is similar to that
in A2 and the owin the region B1 is similar to that in B2, only
the ow in the regions A1 and B1 and the circular channel is
discussed. Two surface aerators like inverse umbrella are used
for aeration, which are proportional to the real one. The top
surface of the aerators overlaps with the surface of the oxida-
tion ditch. The distance between the center axis of the aerator
and the end of the bafe is 32mm. The schematic map of the
aerator is given in Fig. 3. Table 1 tabulates the dimensions of
the oxidation ditch and the aerator.
Fig. 3 Sketch of the surface aerator like inverse umbrella.
In order to choose the suitable particles for experiments
andto determine the diameter of simulatedparticles, we mea-
sured the characteristic of activated sludge particles from an
oxidation ditch in a wastewater treatment plant at rst. The
density of activated sludge is 1150kg/m
3
. The distribution of
activated sludge particles diameter is obtained using laser
particle analyser (type MICRO-PLUS) fromMalvernInstrument
Ltd., UK. As demonstrated in Fig. 4, the activated sludge par-
ticles are 100m in mean diameter and 96.9m in median
diameter. The experimented particles should have the similar
density and diameter as activated sludge particles. Mean-
while, they should have a size range so they can be used
as tracers for solid and liquid in experiments. Considering
both the density and the diameter of activated sludge, we
choose polystyrene spheres (, =1070kg/m
3
) with volumetric
concentration of 0.02 as discrete phase. It has the same mean
diameter but ranges from30mto 125m. Cleanwater is used
as continuous phase in experiments.
Table 1 Dimensions of the oxidation ditch and aerator.
Parameter H D L h d
1
d
2
h
c
Dimension (mm) 120 288 746 10.8 54 7.5 3.8
26 chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333
Fig. 4 Distribution of activated sludges diameter.
2.2. Particle dynamic analyser (PDA) system
Particle dynamic analyser (PDA) (type 58N50) produced by
Dantec cooperation, Denmark, is employed to measure the
ow in the oxidation ditch. It is developed on the basis of
traditional laser Doppler anemometry and composed of laser,
transmitting system, receiver, signal processor, computer,
as well as a three-dimensional self-motion shelf (shown in
Fig. 5). The velocity, diameter and concentration could be got
simultaneously without disturbing the ow eld. When two
plane polarized laser beams intersect at a measurement point
with an angle 2, they interfere and create fringes (Yurteri et
al., 1993). The two beams have the same intensity, wavelength
z, and polarization. The plane of the fringes is parallel to the
bisector of two beams and perpendicular to the owdirection.
When the particles in the uid cross the fringe pattern, they
scatter light. The frequency f
D
of the scattered light is directly
proportional to the ow velocity U of the particle, as given in
Eq. (1):
|U| =

z
2sin

D
(1)
Thenthe optical signal will be convertedtoanelectrical sig-
nal by a photo multiplier tube. With the aid of corresponding
software, the velocities of liquid and solid could be obtained
separately. Details of PDA theory can be found in Saffman
Fig. 5 Sketch of the experimental system and the
principle of PDA. (1) Laser; (2) signal processor; (3)
one-dimensional ber-optic probe; (4) receiver; (5)
two-dimensional ber-optic probe; (6) self-motion shelf; (7)
computer; (8) aerator; (9) bafe; (10) oxidation ditch.
Fig. 6 Schematic of experimental oxidation ditch
(planform).
(Saffman and Buchhave, 1984; Saffman et al., 1988), Bachalo
(1980), Rashidi et al. (1990) and the Dantec PDA manual.
Both the experimental setup and the principle of PDA are
shown in Fig. 5. The different measurement sections along x,
y and z axes in the oxidation ditch are illustrated with the
dashed lines in Fig. 1, Figs. 5 and 6. The distance between two
measurement points along x and y direction is 150mm and
30mm, respectively. The AA section in Fig. 1a is the plane
passing through the shaft of the aerator with x =0mm. The
BB section is the middle plane with y =72mm between the
wall and the bafe. It should be mentioned that measurement
of velocity at the place withx 0.05mis unavailable due to the
strong aeration of the aerators.
3. Numerical modeling
3.1. Control equations
The solidliquid two-phase ow is modeled in the same
oxidation ditch as in experiments. Software FLUENT 6.2 is
employed for the simulation. The simulation is limited to
three-dimensional, steady state in a turbulent ow regime.
Two-uid model proposed by Ishii (1975) is used to formu-
late the solidliquid two-phase turbulent ow, where both
phases are assumed to coexist at every point in space in
the form of interpenetrating continua. It is assumed that the
uid is an incompressible Newtonian uid, solid phase is rigid
sphere and the interactions between particles are negligi-
ble. The diameter of the simulated solid particles is 0.1mm.
The initial volume concentration of solid phase is 0.02 based
on the experimental data from an oxidation ditch in a local
wastewater treatment plant. Since other external forces are
insignicant in contrast to the drag force (Ljungqvist and
Rasmuson, 2001; Fan et al., 2005), the force in the momentum
exchange term mainly taken into account is the drag force
between uid and particles and gravity only.
In the coordinates (Fig. 1), continuity equations and
momentum equations of liquid and solid (Zhou, 1993) are
expressed as the followings.
(,
c

c
u
ci
)
i
= 0 (2)
(,
d

d
u
di
)
i
= 0 (3)
(,
c

c
u
ci
u
cj
)
j
=
c
P
i
+(
c
t
c.ij
)
j
+ F
cd.i

c
,
c
g
i
(4)
(,
d

d
u
di
u
dj
)
j
=
d
P
i
+(
d
t
d.ij
)
j
F
cd.i

d
,
d
g
i
(5)
where
t
c.ij
= j
c
{u
c.ji
+ u
c.jj

2
3

ij
u
c.kk
}
t
d.ij
= j
d
{u
d.ji
+ u
d.jj

2
3

ij
u
d.kk
}
chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333 27
Fig. 7 Comparison of simulated u
x
of liquid with
experiments.
F
cd
is drag force.
F
cd
=
3
4d
p
C
D

d
(u
d.i
u
c.i
)|u
d.i
u
c.i
| (6)
C
D
is the drag coefcient (Schiller and Nauman, 1935):
C
D
=

24(1 +0.15Rc
0.687
)
Rc
. Rc - 1000
0.44. Rc 1000
(7)
The sum of the volume fractions of two phases is 1, as
expressed in Eq. (8):

c
+
d
= 1 (8)
3.2. Turbulence model
Turbulent effects are modeled by the standard k model. In
the coordinates, the general equation for k and is written as
(,
c

c
u
c
) =

c
j
tc
o

+ S

(9)
where S

is the corresponding source term. =k, . The turbu-

lent viscosity is computed from
j
tc
=
c
j
,
c
k
2

The constants in the model are taken from Launder and

Spalding (1974).
c
j
= 0.9. c
2
= 1.92. o
k
= 1.0. o

= 1.3
3.3. Boundary conditions
(1) Free surface: The free surface is assumedtobe at. It follows
that the normal velocity, the normal uxes of turbulent
kinetic energy and turbulent dissipation rate and the solid
phase fraction gradient are zero at the surface. Though
the inclusion of surface aeration may cause deformation
of the surface, we decided not to include its inuence in
our present research for the sake of simplication.
(2) Solid surfaces: No-slip boundary conditions are imposed at
all solid surfaces for the continuous phase. They are intro-
duced into the calculation via wall functions (Gosman
and Ideriah, 1976). The same conditions are also applied
Fig. 8 Comparison of simulated u
z
of liquid with
experiments.
to the discrete phase and imposed in the corresponding
momentum equations.
3.4. Numerical methods and solution of equations
The multiple reference frames (MRF) method is used to sim-
ulate the ow eld in the oxidation ditch. There are three
reference frames inthe whole oweld. One is inertial station-
ary reference and two are non-inertial rotating references. The
domains circulating two aerators are calculated in the non-
inertial reference frames andthe other domains are calculated
in the inertial reference frame. The axes of two rotating refer-
ences are the centerline of each aerator.
All meshes are unstructured and composed of tetrahe-
drons. The number of grids is 70347. The grids have been
rened near the wall and the aerators to simulate precisely the
ow characteristics. The size of the grids is sufcient to have
a grid-independent solution. The discretization of equations
is performed using the rst-order scheme and the pressure
is solved by the second-order algorithm. The volume fraction
of the solid phase is obtained from the continuity equation.
The non-linearity in the phase momentum equations is dealt
with the under-relaxation technique. When the residuals of
the equations being solved meet the prescribed tolerance, a
converged solution is considered to have been obtained.
Fig. 9 Comparison of u
x
and u
z
between liquid and solid
at 150rpm.
28 chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Verication of results
For the sake of checking the simulation methods and results,
the results are veried by the lab-scale experiments. Since
the velocities along x and z axes are more important than
that in the direction of y axis for oxidation ditches, only the
velocities in x and z directions, that is u
x
and u
z
, are dis-
cussed. In comparison with the experiments, the simulation
results show reasonably good agreements with the experi-
ments. Figs. 7 and 8 plot the comparison of u
x
and u
z
of liquid
phase at the surface of regions A1 and B1, respectively. u
x
and
u
z
increase sharply with x 0.1m owing to strong inuence of
the aerator. Both of them decrease gradually to steady state
with the increase of x. Small difference appears between the
simulated and experimental velocities with aerator speed of
150rpm. The reason for the difference may come partly from
the inconsistency of solid particles diameters in experiments
and simulations. With a higher aerator speed (600rpm), the
Fig. 10 Velocity proles of liquid phase at 150rpm: (a) z =115mm, (b) z =105mm and (c) z =60mm.
chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333 29
Fig. 11 Velocity prole of liquid phase in AA section with x=0mm at 150rpm.
Fig. 12 Velocity proles in the BB section with y=72mm at 150rpm: (a) from the circular channel to the region A1 and (b)
from the region B1 to the circular channel.
agreement between the simulation and the measured data is
more reasonable. All these prove that the simulation methods
employed in this paper are reliable.
4.2. Comparison of velocities between liquid and solid
The velocities of liquid and solid are compared in the simula-
tion. The ow velocity u
x
of liquid is close to that of solid in
Fig. 9. The discrepancy between u
z
of liquid and solid is also
negligible, while u
z
of solid phase is slightly lower than that
of liquid due to the inertial effect. In a whole, the velocity of
liquid is similar to that of solid. Hence, we pay more attention
to liquid velocity in the following parts.
4.3. Distributions of velocity and solid concentration
Figs. 1014 are the results with agitation speed of 150rpm.
Fig. 10a shows the velocity vectors of liquid in the plane with
z =115mm. Liquid at the circular channel revolves around the
aerator with a large velocity contrast to that in the straight
channel. The locationof the blades couldbe seenclearly owing
to their higher speed. In the regions A1 and B1, the velocity
decreases withthe increment of the distance x. Inother words,
the velocity owing out of the circular channel (with a small
x value) is larger than that into the circular channel (with a
large x value) at the surface.
The velocity proles of liquid phase with z =105mm and
60mmare plotted in Fig. 10b and c. With the decrease of z, the
velocity drops down and obvious difference is observed in the
circular channel. When z =105mm, a small circulation loop
C1 appears at the location below the aerator. And the velocity
near the bafe in the region A1 is larger than that near the baf-
e in the region B1. When z is reduced to 60mm, the inuence
of blades is weakened. The velocities in the circular channel
are nearly uniform. Besides, the small circulation loop C1 is in
the center of the circular channel in Fig. 10b, while it moves
to the place between the region A1 and the circular channel
in Fig. 10c and becomes the circulation loop C2. Contrary to
Fig. 10b, the velocity near the bafe in the region A1 is smaller
than that near the bafe in the region B1, as shown in Fig. 10c.
FromFig. 10bandc, it canbe concludedthat betweenthe circu-
lar channel and the region A1, the aerator exerts more effects
30 chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333
Fig. 13 Contour of volume fraction of solid phase at 150rpm: (a) z =115mm, (b) z =60mm and (c) z =5mm.
at the surface than in the middle. As to the place between the
circular channel and the region B1, more effects are exerted
in the middle of the oxidation ditch, instead of the surface.
Due to the ow pattern described above, most of suspended
solids (SS) would accumulate at the bottom of the region A1.
The similar phenomenon is observed in the PDAexperiments.
Fig. 11 visualizes the velocity prole at the AA section
(illustrated in Fig. 1a). The uid on the right ows toward the
circular channel and the uid on the left leaving the circular
channel goes into the region A1. The velocity near the bot-
tom is very small, while the velocity at the top is relatively
large. Two circulation loops occur on both sides of the aera-
tor. But the velocity proles and the shapes of two circulation
loops are quite different, which gives an indication that the
aerator exerts different effects on its two sides because of the
centrifugal effect.
Fig. 12 plots the velocity vectors in the BB section (illus-
trated in Fig. 1a). In Fig. 12a, a circulation loop C3 appears in
the upper part of the circular channel, and the uid in the
lower part leaves the circular channel with an upward veloc-
ity. The ow becomes more complicated between the circular
channel and the region B1 in Fig. 12b. On one hand, the uid
ows into the circular channel and forms a big circulationloop
C4. On the other hand, the motion of the uid toward the cir-
cular channel interacts with the rotation of the aerator. This
contributes to the formation of a small circulation loop C5 at
the top between the region B1 and the circular channel.
From the above analyses, it is clear that the ow in an oxi-
dation ditch has strong three-dimensional features, especially
in the circular channel near the aerators. Hence, the design of
the oxidation ditch should be developed based on its hydrody-
namic characteristic instead of the commonly used plug-ow.
The distribution of solid concentration in the oxidation
ditch is determined as well. Fig. 13 is the contours of volume
fraction of solid phase at different planes in z axis. Fig. 14
shows the distribution of solid volume fraction within the
plane AA. The volume fraction of solid phase grows up from
the top to the bottom gradually. The smaller is the distance
chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333 31
Fig. 14 Contour of volume fraction of solid phase in AA section at 150rpm (x=0mm).
Fig. 15 (a) Effects of aerator speed on liquid ow velocity at the surface of the ditch. (b) Effects of aerator speed on liquid
ow velocity in the middle of the ditch. (c) Effects of aerator speed on u
z
of liquid at the surface of the ditch. (d) Effects of
aerator speed on u
z
of liquid in the middle of the ditch.
32 chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333
Fig. 16 Effects of aerator speed on solid concentration (a)
at the surface of the ditch (b) in the middle of the ditch.
to the bottom of the oxidation ditch, the larger is the volume
fraction of solid phase. Figs. 10c and 13b are both at the plane
with z =60mm. In Fig. 13b, most of the solid phase accumu-
lates at the place where the uid has the minimumvelocity in
Fig. 10c. This indicates that the slow ow in the ditch induces
the SS settlement. At the bottom of the oxidation ditch with
z =5mm (Fig. 13c), most of the solid phase accumulates in the
circular channel. This proves that the aerator inuences the
circular channel less at the bottom, eventhoughit has a strong
impact on the surface. As far as the straight channel is con-
cerned, solid phase is ready to settle in region A1 as plotted in
Fig. 13c. The sedimentation is observed in these areas during
our lab-scale experiments. Chen et al. (2006) also found that
the solid phase was easy to accumulate at the downstream
of the aerators. Propellers could be set at the bottom between
the circular channel and the region A1 to prevent the sedi-
mentation of sludge and satisfy the need of ow velocity in
the oxidation ditch.
4.4. Inuence of aerator speed
Simulation is conducted with three different aerator speeds:
150, 300 and 600rpm. Shown in Fig. 15a and b are the effects
of aerator speed on liquid owvelocity u
x
. The owvelocity of
liquid phase increases with the increase of aerator speed. The
effect of aerator speed differs with the location in the oxida-
tion ditch. At the surface near the bafe (Fig. 15a, z =115mm),
the ow velocities with aerator speed of 150 and 300rpm are
very close. Both are slower than that of 600rpm. However, the
ow is quite different in the middle of the oxidation ditch,
as demonstrated in Fig. 15b. The velocity with aerator speed
of 600rpm is obviously larger than the others. The uid has
a higher velocity with aerator speed of 300rpm than that of
150rpm. The ow velocity increases more remarkably with a
higher aerator speed in the middle.
u
z
of liquidphase withdifferent aerator speeds is compared
in Fig. 15c and d. Similar to ow velocity, u
z
seldom differs
with the aerator speed at the surface near the bafe (Fig. 15c).
It means that the aerator exerts less effect on u
z
at the sur-
face of the oxidation ditch. The inuence of aerator speed is
more notable inthe middle of the ditch(Fig. 15d). InFig. 15d, u
z
increases with the aerator speed at the place with x <0.15m.
When x is about 0.15m, the discrepancy among various aera-
tor speeds is minimized to zero. Thereafter, the absolute value
of u
z
increases with aerator speed again.
The distribution of solid phase levels off with the increase
of aerator speed. When aerator speed is 150rpm, the solid
concentration declines gradually along the x axis at the sur-
face near the bafe (Fig. 16a). In the middle of the oxidation
ditch, the solid concentration decreases greatly at rst, then
steadies at about 0.0145 (Fig. 16b). The solid concentration
distributes more evenly with the increment of aerator speed.
When aerator speed is 600rpm, the solid concentration nearly
has no change with the different locations in x axis (Fig. 16a
and b). It varies around 0.019, very close to the average vol-
ume fraction 0.02. The evolution of solid concentration with
aerator speed of 300rpm is between that of 150rpm and
600rpm.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, the ow characteristic in a lab-scale oxidation
ditch is simulated and experimented in detail. Comparison
is performed between the velocities of liquid and solid. The
inuence of aerator speed is discussed. All these results pro-
vide evidence for the optimization and further research of
oxidation ditches. The following conclusions are obtained:
(1) According to our study, PDA is a useful tool which can
be applied to environmental engineering for the mea-
surement of ow dynamics. The simulations about the
solidliquid two-phase owin the oxidation ditch are con-
sistent with the experimental results measured by PDA,
which proves that the simulation methods employed in
this paper and the results are reliable. It is possible to
include gas and activated sludge in the future research.
(2) With the decrease of the location in z axis, the velocity
drops down. The velocity owing out of the circular chan-
nel is higher than that into the circular channel at the top
of the oxidation ditch, while the ow is on the contrary in
the middle of the oxidation ditch. The volume fraction of
solid phase declines with the increase of z.
(3) The velocity increases with the rising of aerator speed.
Solid phase disperses more evenly with a higher aerator
speed. The effect of aerator speed on velocity is more sig-
nicant in the middle of the oxidation ditch than that at
the surface.
(4) The ow in oxidation ditches with surface aerators
has strong three-dimensional features, especially in the
chemical engineering research and design 8 8 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 2333 33
regions near the circular channel. Propellers could be set
at the bottombetween the circular channel and the region
A1 to prevent the settling of sludge.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the nancial support from the
National High Technology Research and Development
Program of China (863 Program) (Nos. 2002AA601200,
2004AA601060).
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