Days of Drying Available in a Sludge Bed

by Abigail McDonald

 

Submitted : Spring 2011

As sludge builds up in a drying bed, water drains and the sludge thickens, providing more room for the sludge to build up. To know how many days are available for drying with the provided beds, the varying density of the sludge must be taken into account. A function must be derived such that it is possible to predict the amount of sludge that builds up with the varying density. Based on such information, it is possible to determine how many days the process will require. Utilizing simple algebra, integration, regression, and the coefficient of determination, several functions can be found and the function with the least variability between explained variation and total variation will serve as the best model.

Based on the results, the equation f(V_s) = 0.7155+0.004699V_s is the best function given that r² ≈ 0.5167. This equation yielded 1292.85 pounds of solids and will take 10.02 days to dry per bed. It must be noted that since the coefficient of determination is relatively low, the number of days of drying is most likely inaccurate. This overall means that the facility with this particular set of beds will work for the time being, but as the human population grows, it would be worth considering constructing another bed. This study should be repeated with different volume and density points to derive different density functions whose coefficients of determination might be higher.

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