Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2
ChaPTer
WaTer hydrauliCs
Beginning students of water hydraulics and its principles often
approach the subject matter with certain misgivings. For example,
water/wastewater operators quickly learn on the job that their primary
operational and maintenance responsibilities involve a daily routine of
monitoring, sampling, laboratory testing, and operation and process
maintenance. How does water hydraulics relate to daily operations? The
hydraulic functions of the treatment process have already been designed
into the plant. Why learn water hydraulics at all?
Simply put, while having hydraulic control of the plant is obviously
essential to the treatment process, maintaining and ensuring continued
hydraulic control is also essential. No water/wastewater facility (and/or
distribution collection system) can operate without proper hydraulic con-
trol. The operator must know what hydraulic control is and what it entails
to know how to ensure proper hydraulic control. Moreover, in order to
understand the basics of piping and pumping systems, water/wastewater
maintenance operators must have a fundamental knowledge of basic water
hydraulics.
spellman and drinan (2001, p. 5)
Note:
The practice and study of water hydraulics are not new. Even in
medieval times, water hydraulics was not new, as “Medieval Europe had
inherited a highly developed range of Roman hydraulic components”
(Magnusson, 2001, p. xi). The basic conveyance technology, based on low-
pressure systems of pipe and channels, had already been established.
When studying “modern” water hydraulics, it is important to remember
that the science of water hydraulics is the direct result of two immediate
and enduring problems: “the acquisition of freshwater and access to a
continuous strip of land with a suitable gradient between the source and
the destination” (Magnusson, 2001, p. 36).
