Author : Anand P. Dhanwani, Srinivasarao Meka and Vaidehi Bhatt

In this paper, an industrial case study to determine production possibility for the fixed volume segregation tanks and their structure is discussed. The generation rates of waste water from a batch plant causes significant variations in the flow rate as well as concentrations in the influent to effluent treatment plant. Flow equalization systems are used to reduce the shock loads. The present study deals with the suitability of two flow equalization schemes practiced in the industry with an objective of increasing production flexibility. Production schedule for each product is determined and represented in the form of Gantt chart. The waste water generated from each plant is connected to segregation tanks. Dynamic simulations are performed to identify time varying nature of the inlet streams and the height as well as concentration variation in each of these segregation tanks using MATLAB. The simulation study has conclusively established suitability of combined segregation tanks over distributed segregation tanks for a given production capacity. It is also shown that the production flexibility is more for combined scheme in comparison with the distributed scheme.

Keywords: Segregation tanks, Production schedule, Flow equalization, waste water generation.