INTEGRATING ASM 2d MODELS INTO WHOLE PLANT MASS BALANCE SIMULATORS

The complexity of full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is growing, and much of this is due to the development and provision of nutrient-removal processes in these facilities. Fortunately, commercial process models and simulators are available, and are invaluable tools for process engineers designing such WWTPs. Models and simulators allow users to base their designs on a strong fundamental basis. This paper identifies the most important requirements that a process engineer expects from a process simulator including its accuracy, the ability of the simulator to perform a mass balance of the entire facility, and its flexibility. In this paper, a strategy is discussed that allows ASM 2d models to be used within simulators while meeting all of the above mentioned requirements. The main concept is to link standard and commercially available ASM 2d-based simulators with external “host” simulators. The result is a significant increase in the flexibility of the overall plant simulation, without requiring the commercial vendors to include models in their simulator libraries for all conceivable unit processes that might be used at WWTPs. Two example applications of this approach are presented in this paper.