I'm trying to model a flow diversion system at a wastewater treatment plant (see attachment for schematic). Wet Well A is a flat channel that, for all intents and purposes, serves as a storage basin between two treatment processes at the plant. Wet Well B is an actual wet well at a pump station that's used for flow diversion when the plant flow gets too high. This wet well is at a lower elevation than Wet Well A, and therefore the flow from Wet Well A to Wet Well B is by gravity. Wet Well C is a holding tank that's at a higher elevation than the rest of the plant. The green line in the attachment represents the flow path of water when it's being diverted from the treatment process to the holding tank. The orange path represents the flow path of water when it's being conveyed, by gravity, from the holding tank back to the treatment process. Just to be clear, the green and orange lines for Segments 1 and 3 represent the same pipe, only with the flow being in opposite directions.
Is it possible to model this system in SewerCAD? If so, do I need to have both a pressure pipe and a conduit in the model for certain pipe segments? Would it be easier to model this diversion system in WaterCAD?
Flow Diversion Diagram.pdf
All of the gravity flow in this system is pressurized flow and not open channel flow. It sounds like it would be better for me to model this system in WaterCAD instead of SewerCAD, so I might do that. However, a few follow-up questions about SewerCAD have come to mind:
a) If I were to have a conduit going from Wet Well C to the intersection of Segment 1 (which presumably would also be a conduit), would I need to insert a manhole there to allow flow from Wet Well C to Wet Well A and have the rim elevation at this manhole be higher than the maximum water surface elevation in Wet Well A?
b) Is there a way to open and close a conduit in SewerCAD (or add a valve to that line) like there is with pressure pipes?
c) If I were to convey water from Wet Well C to Wet Well A via conduits (as described in Item (a)), is there any way to set up the controls such that water will only start to flow through these conduits when the inflow/loading into Wet Well A drops below a certain value?
Thanks,
Rob
In answer to your specific questions
And yes, you can use WaterCAD/WaterGEMS to model the flow as long as the pipes remain full.