Kira Gidron's Individual Contribution

Fall 2012 Contributions

I am part of the Design Team. On Friday the 14th of September we finished the Aguaclara trainings which were an introduction on how to use MathCAD and AutoCAD. I have been assigned the task of constructing a Materials List. I will be working on that throughout this semester and possibly into the next semester. Here is a description of my task: 

Create a materials list that is useful for the team in Honduras. Since our designs do not include a significant amount of structural aspects of the design, it is important to focus primarily on the hydraulic design materials. This mostly includes pipes, pipe fittings, sheets for flocculator baffles and sedimentation plate settlers, and chemical dose controller pieces. Further communication with engineers in Honduras could allow us to automate an estimation of structural materials such as volume of brick, rebar, and bags of cement needed for the plant walls, amount of river rock needed for entrance tank hoppers, etc.

PVC pipes in Honduras are available in 6 meter lengths called lances. You will need to create a function to find the number of lances given an array of lengths needed of each nominal diameter of PVC. The function cannot simply cycle through the array, adding lengths until reaching 6m; the function must find the lowest number of pipe sections by applying an intelligent algorithm to optimize the use of each pipe section given the length of piping that are needed. The algorithm sorts all of the pipe lengths of a given diameter (and schedule) that are needed and begins by assigning the longest length needed to a pipe section. Then calculate the unused length and assign the longest pipe needed that is shorter than that length to the unused length. Continue in this fashion until only a piece of scrap remains. Then repeat this process of efficiently using a section of pipe for each new section of pipe until all of the needed pipe lengths are provided. This algorithm likely uses stock more efficiently than it is used in the field; an even more efficient algorithm would likely end up in suggesting that fewer lances than would actually be needed during the construction process. The development of an efficient algorithm for the lances calculation must be paired with a plan to label the pipes with where they should be cut and a plan to communicate these cuts to the construction team. Drew, Santiago (APP's Civil Engineer), and Antonio (APP/AguaClara Technician) would be good resources to discuss possibilities for implementation plans. (Santiago and Antonio do only speak Spanish, so take this into account if contacting them.)

Develop a systematic method to have material properties (dimensions and pricing) for each country so that those material properties can be turned into a detailed materials list and materials cost estimate for the plant.

• Use this ability to calculate costs to assess changes in cost due to changes in design parameters. Propose changes to design parameters that could reduce costs while maintaining overall plant performance. This is a larger task and needs to be done individually for each component of the plant.

Several of the CEE 4540 Fall 2011 teams created Mathcad code to calculate materials requirements for the sedimentation tanks. Build on this approach to generate a complete materials list. Also, engineers in Honduras have sent us a hydraulic design materials list for the San Nicolas design and a budget for Alauca's plant that can be used as a basis.