Evaluating reactor hydraulics in a cost-effective and environment-friendly way: Numerical tracer study

Abstract

Tracer analysis is commonly used to evaluate the hydraulics of environmental and chemical engineering systems. The traditional tracer analysis is conducted through physical experiments that are usually complex, costly, time-intensive, and may be impractical. Because of the continued advancement of computing technology, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has demonstrated its applicability in simulating tracer transport. CFD can provide advantages, including no interruptions of existing water treatment process, no impacts of background concentration, and a relatively low cost. However, no reports have quantitatively studied the cost that CFD can save on tracer analysis. This study first proved the accuracy of CFD tracer analysis for an existing ozone disinfection tank and then compared the economic expenses and environmental impacts of CFD tracer analysis with those of a field tracer analysis. It was found that CFD-based tracer analysis has accuracy on par with the physical-based study but at relatively low economic cost and environmental impacts.