Preface

Treatment systems may consist of many physical, chemical, and biological processes
coupled together to achieve some overall treatment goal. These systems may be
designed and operated for treating water for potable use, treating domestic and
industrial wastewater prior to discharge, treating water for water reuse, purifying
water for industrial purposes, etc. There are many textbooks and courses that cover
the fundamentals of the physical, chemical, and biological processes that make up
these treatment systems. Yet often the most challenging design, construction, and
operational problems in treatment systems are due to the hydraulics of the system.
Will the pipe or channel achieve design flow? What is the proper valve to use for a
certain application? How are pumps chosen? How is the system behavior controlled?
What are the proper materials to use? Engineers involved with treatment systems
have to know how to answer these types of hydraulics questions and many more.
Although there are a plethora of courses and textbooks that cover general fluid
mechanics and general hydraulics, there is very little instruction at most engineering schools on hydraulics specifically for treatment systems. This text was created
for the authors course at Worcester Polytechnic Institute on treatment system hydraulics when a suitable text could not be found that covered the salient hydraulics
issues for treatment systems. This text covers the nuts and bolts of treatment systems, which is what most entry-level engineers and many experienced engineering
practitioners deal with on a day-to-day basis.
This text has chapters on the topics that should be of great utility for engineers
in addressing hydraulics of treatment systems. Chapter 1 presents an introduction
to treatment systems and hydraulics as background material. The material in
Chapter 1 may already be familiar to those either with more experience in treatment process course work or with experience as an engineering practitioner in the
field. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 cover material that is fundamental to subsequent chapters and is needed for understanding hydraulics design and troubleshooting.
Chapter 2 is on fluid properties, Chapter 3 reviews fluid statics, and Chapter 4
covers fundamentals of fluid flow. A significant part of the text that is of great
importance to treatment system engineers is in Chapter 5 on friction in closedconduit fluid flow, Chapter 6 on pumps and motors, Chapter 7 on fluid flow in
granular media, and Chapter 8 on valves. Instrumentation provides much operational
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TREATMENT SYSTEM HYDRAULICS

information for engineers and operators to troubleshoot their systems and is discussed in Chapter 9. Engineers must specify materials for treatment systems with
knowledge of the potential corrosion conditions expected in the system, and how
materials will perform in those conditions. Details of piping materials and corrosion
are covered in Chapter 10. Treatment systems may not operate at steady-state conditions continuously. There may be increased system demands, pumps cycling on
and off, valves opening and closing, and other scenarios where transients may occur
in treatment systems. The subject of fluid transients is introduced in Chapter 11.
And the final chapter of the text, Chapter 12, covers open channel flow because
open channels are frequently used to convey waters in treatment systems.
Both the U.S. Customary System and the International System of Units (SI) are
used by engineers and scientists around the world. Engineering practitioners in the
United States have historically used the U.S. Customary System and the American
engineering industry has resisted adoption of SI units. Yet the rest of the world
uses the International System. With increasing collaboration among engineers on
a global basis, American-based engineers may be involved in projects around the
world requiring the use of the SI units. It is therefore imperative that engineers
today be able to work in both systems. This text employs both the SI and U.S. Customary System units. Engineers today must be ambidextrous with respect to units
and should be able to use both systems with little thought or confusion.
I thank the many students in my Treatment System Hydraulics course at WPI
who were exposed to the draft version of this text, and who provided many constructive comments. The feedback certainly resulted in a much better text. I also
thank my family, especially my wife Kimberly, who provided great support and
inspiration throughout this effort.