- Experts from the Grupo Gimeno company participate in the TRACER8 International Congress on tracers, modeling and simulation tools
After its time in countries such as Norway or Morocco, the International Conference on Tracers and Tracing Methods! arrives in Đà Nẵng (Vietnam) thanks to the International Society for Tracer and Radiation Applications (ISTRA), in a meeting that has had the active participation of experts from FACSA.
During the event, which took place at the Grand Tourane Hotel in aneà Nẵng, Javier Climent, R&D&I technician of the company Gimeno Servicios, presented two works on the company's research on modeling and application of tracers in anaerobic digestion processes, studies developed in collaboration with the Multiphase Fluids Group of the Jaume I University.
The work, carried out to understand the hydraulic functioning within these tanks and optimize mixing in the anaerobic digestion process, consisted of applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation tools combined with full-scale inert tracer tests, allowing for model validation. Among the main results obtained from the study are the selection of alternative operating modes for the agitation system, the definition of a criterion for quantifying dead volumes, and the choice of a low-cost tracer adapted to the process. The aim is to demonstrate the effectiveness of an innovative technological solution through the combination of CFD and experimental measurements.
On the other hand, FACSA presented to the attendees two of the studies carried out on FACSA farms through two posters: “Hydraulic Study of a real Scale Subsurface Flow constructed Wetland using CFD Simulation and Tracer Experiments” and “Tracer Techniques for Validating CFD Modelling of Open Channel UV Disinfection Systems”.
The first of these shows a numerical model for a constructed wetland in vertical subsurface flow at real scale, validated with tracer experiments, which has allowed a deeper understanding of the hydraulic behavior of constructed wetlands, resulting in a proposal for improvements in the permeability submodels that the CFD simulation considers in order to have a better representation of the real operation and optimize the system.
On the other hand, the second poster presents several CFD simulation models developed to improve the disinfection performance of a full-scale open UV channel in the tertiary treatment of a wastewater treatment plant. This has allowed for a detailed study of the hydraulic behavior and the reproduction of fluid dynamics phenomena under different operating conditions. Furthermore, following the implementation of the radiation model, extensive experimental validation was performed to evaluate the improvement through measurements of E. coli, flow velocity, inert tracers, and reactive tracers.
