Abstract:

Water is essential for life, for our economy and our civilization. If water is essential for the survival of our civilization, how can we engineer a system that integrates water to the needs of our society in a sustainable way? Without proper design of water distribution, wastewater collection and wastewater treatment we cannot attain sustainability as regards water.

Water resource recovery is central to the circular economy framework because it underlies the transition of environmental engineering from pollution prevention to responsible innovation for sustainable systems engineering. In order to speed this transition, resource recovery and circularity need integration into new higher education curricula to train the next generation of young professionals. Also, it is important to provide proper simulation tools to make easier the experimentation.

Since 1998 several benchmark tools were developed for evaluating through simulation, control strategies for activated sludge plants. The benchmark development has been undertaken in Europe by Working Groups of COST Action 682 and 624, and later under the umbrella of an International Water Association (IWA) Task Group. COST’s (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) actions have developed well accepted models for WasteWater Treatment Plants (WWTP), but they are neither easy to use nor conceived on a modular way to extend to other WWTP configurations.

In this article, Simulink block library is described containing elements which assist the teaching or research in control/operation of the WWTP. The blocks are developed based on the BSM2 model developed by IWA Task Group. The library contains specialised component blocks for basic and unit processes, such as a bioreactor, combiner, flow splitter, settler, etc. In the library there are also included instrumentation component blocks such as: sensors, actuators and controller blocks. The library is a supplement to the Simulink environment and enables the dynamics and control of a WWTP to be illustrated and investigated. An example of a WWTP is given to demonstrate the utility of the current state of the library. Also through this example we demonstrate that the developed library provide proper simulation tools to make easier the experimentation. As regards the teaching part, the library will help students/masters to understand the functioning of a WWTP, to understand the action-reaction principle in WWTP, the systems of equations that define the components of a WWTP.

Keywords:

Simulation tools, technology, sustainability.