A Review of Modeling Approaches and Key Parameters in the Simulation of Wastewater Treatment Plants

Besides the purification process in the wastewater treatment plant that includes mechanical, biological, and chemical approaches, analysis of hydraulic behavior is also fundamental. This means developing a digital replica of the physical process by simulating the hydraulic parameters. Studying fluid behavior in the plant enables process optimization, improves plant behavior, prevents equipment malfunctions, and more. This paper focuses on defining the concept of a wastewater treatment plant prototype, simulating it, and identifying the available and most suitable software that enables efficient process simulation and validation. The hydraulic parameters, as per the literature review and the proposed concept, that will be simulated are pressure, flow, pressure drop, and water level. MATLAB/Simulink and Python programming languages are considered the most suitable software/programming languages for hydraulic parameters simulation.