Prediction of Clean-Bed Head Loss in Crumb Rubber Filters

Abstract

Crumb rubber media have been beneficially invented for ballast water and tertiary wastewater treatment. There is a critical need for precise prediction of clean-bed head loss for engineering design purposes. Pilot crumb rubber filters were tested to study their clean-bed head loss under the influences of three design and operational parameters (media size, media depth, and filtration rate). Data from the filtration tests were used to evaluate the application of the Kozeny and Ergun equations in crumb rubber filters and to develop a statistical model for examination of the effects of each parameter and for clean-bed head loss prediction. Results showed that both the Kozeny and Ergun equations had limitations for crumb rubber filters, especially when the data of compressed media depth were unavailable from the filtration tests. The statistical model developed by the multiplicative power-law relationship was proved to be valid, and it could be used to predict clean-bed head loss in crumb rubber filters.