Dear list-members,
Some of you may be interested in a recent PhD
thesis, which is summarised below. In case there
is sufficient interest, a reprint will be
considered (see end of this message).
Best regards
Manfred Schuetze
"INTEGRATED SIMULATION AND OPTIMUM CONTROL OF THE URBAN
WASTEWATER SYSTEM"
PhD thesis by Manfred Schuetze
Supervisors: Professor Bruce Beck; Dr. David Butler
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine; University
of London; United Kingdom
Only recently have attempts been made to consider the sewer
system, treatment plant and receiving water body as one integral
system (the urban wastewater system - UWWS), rather than to
consider them separately as individual parts. The main aim of
this thesis is to consider whether and if so, to what extent,
integrated control of the UWWS is superior to conventional
control (i.e. control which does not consider the wastewater
system in its entirety).
The thesis begins with a review of water quantity and quality
processes in sewer system, treatment plant and river and of
related modelling approaches. Furthermore, control of urban
wastewater systems and mathematical optimisation techniques are
reviewed. In order to achieve the objective of this thesis, an
innovative integrated simulation tool ("SYNOPSIS") was assembled
from existing models and adapted to the particular needs of this
project. The models used are described and problems with their
mutual compatibility are discussed. Due to its architecture
this simulation tool allows information from all parts of the
urban wastewater system to be considered when taking a control
decision.
Since most other optimisation approaches require substantial
model simplifications, this study follows an "off-line"
optimisation approach. Optimisation is carried out to establish
optimum (or, at least, sufficiently good) parameters of control
strategies. Strategies are represented by sets of rules and
parameters of controllers. Since few assumptions can be made
about the objective function, which describes impacts of the
settings of the strategy parameters on river water quality, two
global optimisation procedures (Genetic Algorithm, Controlled
Random Search) were implemented and linked to the simulation
tool. The underlying ideas and characteristics of these methods
are described, analysed and discussed in the thesis.
Furthermore, a local optimisation method is applied and
discussed.
Application of these tools and methods to a semi-hypothetical
case-study site is carried out for different control scenarios
with various degrees of sophistication. Results suggest that an
improvement of river water quality can be obtained by integrated
control, with the degree of improvement of river water quality
depending on the particular control scenario and the case study
site.
In addition to the discussion of results for the
semi-hypothetical case study, also various issues of relevance
to the application of the simulation and optimisation procedure,
such as the sensitivity of solutions and the influence of
various characteristics of the case study site on the potential
of integrated control, are briefly discussed, before suggestions
for future research are given.
(450+iv pp.; Costs: approximately GBP 25/EUR 35; Discount for CEE
countries; Enquiries to: Dr Manfred Schuetze: Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering; Imperial College of Science,
Technology and Medicine; London SW7 2BU; United Kingdom;
Email: [log in to unmask])
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Dr Manfred Schuetze
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
London SW7 2BU
United Kingdom
Tel.: +44-171-5946020 / 5946018
Fax: +44-171-2252716
Email: [log in to unmask]
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