Abstract

In typical commercial UV treatment system, water is flushed through a reactor vessel, where a UV lamp irradiates the flowing water. The distribution of the UV dose is extremely non-uniform. At distances away from the light, the dosage will be too low to kill the microorganism. As a result more power is needed in such a system for an effective treatment. A new energy-efficient UV disinfection system, named "Off Center", was designed, developed, and tested. This "Off Center" system consists of a UV bulb that has been relocated from its traditional central location to a location closer to the 4-in chamber inner wall. Test results have shown that this unit is 33% more efficient than a comparable commercial unit. This improvement was obtained by introducing unique design modifications that provided better fluid flow comditions, which in turn led to higher UV dose delivery to flowing water in new system. A UV Dosage Distribution program was also developed together with numerical models, which utilized Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, to predict dosage and energy performances in both commercial and new systems. To facilitate the UV system performance, MS2 virus was used as the test microbe in the bioassay experiments. The margin of error in CFD and bioassay results of both systems is about 4%, which shows that the CFD models developed to determine UV dosage are valid.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Water--Purification--Disinfection; Ultraviolet radiation; Irradiation

Publication Date

1-2006

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Mechanical Engineering (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Mechanical Engineering (KGCOE)

Advisor

Ali Ogut

Advisor/Committee Member

Amitabha Ghosh

Advisor/Committee Member

Panchapakesan Venkataraman

Comments

Physical copy available from RIT's Wallace Library at TD460 .G64 2005

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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