Implementation of Instrumentation and Control in Wastewater Treatment

Sunday, October 19, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm
1 day, 0.6 CEUs

This workshop will provide an overview of all the major steps in the implementation of Instrumentation and Control (I&C) at wastewater treatment plants. The first half of the workshop consists of a series of presentations and interactive discussions of a real life case study and additional background information including theory and practical experience. The participants will develop a second case study based on a given plant and an objective provided by the attendees.
The aim of the workshop is to go through the whole implementation procedure covering the following topics, explaining the theoretical background and discuss typical pitfalls: instrumentation including sensor and meter selection, positioning, accuracy, (re-)calibration, maintenance of and problems with sensors; controller design focusing on interaction between process, control and software engineer; rule-based or model-based design, standard controllers, nutrient controllers, controller tuning, feed-back/feed-forward; implementation such as valve selection, actuators, blowers, SCADA/PLC options, documentation, costs; start-up including testing and fine-tuning; adaptation--what happens if the influent load is changing?; and, cost-benefit analysis

A case study will be presented in parallel with the background information in order to show the implementation steps for a real system and to illustrate the principles and pitfalls involved in developing and implementing a real life control system.  The case study will be an upgrade project for the WWTP Morgental in Switzerland where a combined DO / ammonia control system was used with the goal of reducing the energy consumption and at the same time improving the nitrogen removal capacity. The project was scientifically supported by EAWAG (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology). WWTP Morgental is not well suited to aeration control. It consists of six lanes, and each lane in the biological stage is divided into two sub-lanes. The aeration system consists of four equal positive displacement blowers whose output cannot be reduced below a minimum of 70%. Moreover, the wastewater distribution is not equalized. All of these factors presented considerable hurdles that had to be overcome in order to implement the control system.  The case study will be presented by Dr Leiv Rieger from his personal experience of this project.

Following the step by step presentation of background information alongside a Real Life Case Study, the participants will then go through their own “exploration” case study in order to discuss what they knew prior to the workshop and what they have learned in the workshop to another example site. The exploration case study will be developed in collaboration with the participants, though suggested topics will be made. Six teams will work in parallel on the whole implementation procedure trying to find an optimal and efficient solution which will be modeled using computer simulators. The organizers will provide a modeling expert with a laptop computer and software to each team to support the control system development and its evaluation. At the end of this session the results of the groups will be presented and in a discussion and conclusions will be drawn on the hurdles and benefits they came across in their investigations.  The primary purpose of the exploration case study is to provide a framework in which concerns and ideas can be discussed.  Some practical solutions may be exchanged as part of the dialogue, though the group is not expected to design a perfect control system.  The interactive exchange is designed to provide attendees with information they can apply directly to their own projects.

Chair
Andrew R. Shaw, Black & Veatch

Co-Chair
Leiv Rieger, Université Laval, Quebec

Speakers
Gustaf Olsson, Lund University
Julie Gass, Black & Veatch
Oliver Schraa, Hydromantis, Inc.
Alex Ekster, Ekster and Associates
Peter A. Vanrolleghem, Université Laval, Quebec
Jens Alex, ifak e.V. Magdeburg, Germany
Youri Amerlinck, MOSTforWATER N.V., Belgium
Robert Walker, EnviroSim Associates, Ltd.