"Deals with the movement of flocs in suspensions, as they appear in biological water treatment (BWT) plants."
This article states that "Large (2.9 m) plates, however, have been shown to be preferable to shorter (1.5 m) plates," even though we have successfully shortened the plates in some of the plants built in Honduras by decreasing the spacing between them.
This article states that for plate settlers, "an effective spacing is about 0.3 m, but no optimization studies are known to have been published." It also claims that plate settlers make no difference, or disrupt the system, which is contrary to what we have seen in the lab.
Brentwood Industries explains why the effluent quality is greatly improved out of sedimentation tanks when tube settlers are present.