Documentation

Concept

In order to help AguaClara grow into a professional organization, it was necessary to create a single document that will give interested engineers a succinct technical description of Aguaclara plants and processes. The document will be integrated into the AguaClara Design Tool, and it will automatically tailor equations and variables to a specific design. This will allow engineers and other interested local officials to reasonably estimate the feasibility of constructing an AguaClara plant in their community.

Audience

The documentation is meant to be read by municipal engineers who are interested in building a plant using AguaClara designs. As such, it will contain technical information at a sufficient depth to give a general overview. This will include important equations, customized design values, and elevations taken from AutoCAD drawings.

It is expected to be useful for other people besides the engineers, such as people involved in the construction process. However, the documentation will be designed first with the engineers in mind.

Contents

The final document will be organized in the following manner:

First, there will be an overview of the Aguaclara technology which will go through the purification process from beginning to end, describing each step. Specific steps include the chemical doser, rapid mixer, flocculation, the inlet channel, sedimentation, and the exit channel. Each section will include the customized mathematical values generated by the design tool (for example, the length of each of the baffles in the vertical flocculator, the number of flocculator channels required, etc)

The complexity of sedimentation requires that it be broken down into the following sections:
1. Inlet pipe
2. Slopes
3. Lamella
4. Effluent launder
5. Drains

Second will be a more general discussion of the limitations of the AguaClara process. This section will discuss the reasons why a process that uses no electricity can only remove turbidity to a certain extent. This is one of the main reasons why AguaClara plants cannot currently be constructed in the United States.

Third, will be a discussion the costs associated with the construction of an AguaClara plant. The costs will be broken down by type (upfront, during construction, etc..), and the section will conclude with a ballpark estimate of the total price.

Finally, a brief description of past Aguaclara plants and current research will be included.

How it works

Upon completion, the AguaClara manual will give engineers a general overview of the Aguaclara process, but it will also provide a tailored set of values pertinent to the design under consideration. These values will be inserted into the document automatically through the use of a LabView script which will replace variables with custom values for the design. LabView will also take advantage of "switches" built in with Microsoft Word fields (Please see the separate set of instructions which were prepared regarding how to use MS Word Fields). This will allow the document to be customized to provide information about options such as horizontal or vertical flocculation.

Final Note

It should be noted that the AguaClara manual is meant to be used as a reference - for a complete set of mathematical values and drawings, engineers will still have to reference the rest of the documents and drawings provided by the design tool.