Monte Carlo Analysis for Aeration Design

To minimize the risk of the uncertainties of the influent conditions at a wastewater treatment facility, engineers perform steady state simulations using conservative design loadings to design the aeration system for the activated sludge process. A conservative aeration design can be detrimental to process operation and energy efficiency, especially to biological nutrient removal processes, due to blower oversizing. The use of a probabilistic modeling approach will include the influent uncertainties with the process simulations, and the results can be used to quantify the risk of the design. This paper will go into the details of using a common probability approach called, Monte Carlo analysis, for designing aeration systems.