Abstract
Sedimentation is one of the most common and important units in conventional water treatment plants. Structure such as various baffle walls and inclined plate settler may be obstacles to the horizontal flow when it is poorly designed. Therefore, the effects of these structures on characteristics of hydraulic flow must be evaluated to improve the settling efficiency of the floc. The hydraulic characteristic of the four sedimentations at the three real WTPs (water treatment plants), which have different structural properties respectively inside the settling basin, were investigated by tracer (fluoride) test. The inclined plate settler installed inside settling basin caused a undesirable impact on horizontal flow and produced dead zone. Intermediate baffle and solid baffle wall under the inclined plate settler at GE plant help to minimize the formation of density currents and flow short circuiting. However, installing perforated baffle under the inclined plate settler at other plants could not induce even distribution of flow. NaF used as a tracer was recovered more than 90% at investigated all basin. Morill index ($t_{90}/t_{10}$), Modal index ($t_p/T-HRT$) and short-circuiting index ($[M-HRT-t_p/M-HRT$) were determined from tracer test results performed at three WTPs. Those indices ranged 2.99~3.45, 0.44~0.72 and 0.23~0.47, respectively.