Initial Settling Rate/Concentration Relationship in Zone Settling

Abstract

A theoretical relationship is established between the initial settling rate and the concentration of a suspension in a sedimentation process. It is obtained by an analogy between the sedimentation and the filtration processes. The calculated results satisfactorily coincide with those reported in the literature. Consequently, analytical expressions are proposed to calculate the minimum flux and the corresponding critical concentration of a suspension. Dick's method and the proposed expressions give almost the same results for the mentioned parameters. The proposed method provides an opportunity to apply Dick's basic idea for determining the design parameter of a thickener based on two experiments.