Agalteca Design

Agalteca has a population of 2,160 residents. A distribution tank is already in place, but another distribution tank is expected. Construction of an AguaClara water treatment plant started on September 30th, 2009. More details about the town of Agalteca and the construction of the plant there can be found here.

Agalteca is unique in being the first plant to be designed largely using the Automated Design Tool.

Design Specifics

Entrance Tank

Flocculator

This is the first AguaClara design to use untapered baffles in the flocculator. The goal is to create a 6 mW/kg energy dissipation rate throughout the flocculator. There are 29 baffles in each of the first two channels to ensure that the water flows through the ports connecting channels, which are at the bottom, correctly. The last channel has 28 baffles because the inlet port is at the bottom and the inlet channel for the sedimentation tank is at the top. The baffles use polycarbonate sheets instead of cement which are easier to remove. This makes draining the system much easier.

Sedimentation Tank

The sedimentation tank design is significantly different from previous designs. The main problem that brought about the change is that too much sludge was settling out in the inlet manifolds at Cuatro Comunidades. There was originally a similar design for Agalteca, so it needed to be fixed. To see a list of ideas we thought of on how to fix this problem until we decided on our final design, click here.

The final design involves an inlet pipe down the center of the tank instead of two inlet manifolds. The pipe will be a 6" diameter PVC pipe. The inlet manifolds will be filled in with concrete. The slopes will remain so that flocs are directed toward the sludge drain.

Sludge Drain

Plant Drawings