An online simulation to support the operation of municipal sewage plants

It was investigated whether it is possible to calculate the operational behaviour of municipal sewage treatment plants online via coupling of the dynamic simulation with the process system. Standard software was used and the activated sludge process was described by the Activated Sludge Model No. 1. A method was developed, by which the 13 substance groups of the IAWQ model are calculated on a few online values with the use of multivariate regressions. Using the average values from 15 min. cycles, a continuously updated inflow file for the simulation of a sewage plant is created. To simulate the effluent behavior of a sewage plant online, a program surface was created. As an additional function, a prediction simulation can be performed, based on the current online-state. The work performed to date shows that practical problems at the site have the same significance as the establishment and calibration of the model.