System Analysis of Water Treatment Plant in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper presents an application of a system analysis tool to evaluate the design and operation of a water treatment plant in Taiwan. The optimal design and operation problem is posted as a nonlinear programming problem in which the decision variables are the capacities of the treatment components and the alum and chlorine feed rates used in the treatment process. The solutions to this nonlinear programming problem are obtained from a modified Hestenes' method. Application of the model to the reevaluation of an existing treatment plant in Taiwan revealed that, with the exception of the rapid mixing basin, the optimal capacities determined by the proposed model came fairly close to the original design. Optimal alum and chlorine feed rates and the optimal construction and operation costs for the plant can be estimated from the model. The results of this study suggest that the proposed tool can be used to evaluate water treatment plant design and operation in the future.