TRACK 1
Retrofitting Guidance for Impaired Basins: Physical and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Tools for Design, Regulation, Monitoring and Economics
ABSTRACT
Stormwater basin design/analysis/performance continues to be fraught with uncertainty, given the complexity of highly unsteady loadings and the lack of a tool that can examine the internal behavior of a basin.
As a result, design/regulatory requirements are primarily founded on presumptive criteria. Many such basins misbehave, are impaired (especially as loadings change) and suffer from lack of maintenance, but have geometric (surface area/volume), context-sensitive and cost/benefit constraints.
This work is a primer on successful retrofitting guidance through the lens of a fully-documented case study in Florida for an existing basin discharging to a sensitive receiving water, but with governing geometric, context-sensitive and cost-benefit constraints.
The retrofit was subject to a diverse stakeholder group that included local, regional and federal representatives.
The scope of this work includes:
1. History/use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for basins/BMPs
2. Scaled physical model testing of internal basin retrofit geometrics for proof-of-concept testing
3. Hydraulic and water chemistry mechanisms for particle size distribution (PSD) and nutrient control
4. Evolution and consensus of retrofit design approval process outside of presumptive criteria
5. Retrofit design alternatives/selection
6. Retrofit construction
7. Post-construction monitoring
8. Cost/benefit economics compared to presumptive design
9. Maintenance
10. Lessons learned, self-improvement and near-term future considerations
Learning Objectives
1. Review of analytical, physical and computational tools to assess the behaviour/misbehaviour of stormwater basins
2. Illustrate a comprehensive case study, from conceptual inception to required monitoring results, of the retrofitted basin subject to strict context-sensitive and also cost-benefit constraints
3. Examine the role of all project stakeholders and risks in permitting a retrofit design that had shown proof-of-concept at the controlled pilot scale, but to date not the full-scale retrofit with internal green (recycled) infrastructure materials
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
John Sansalone
John Sansalone is a professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Florida and a visiting professor at five Italian universities. His research interests include:
- Treatment and reuse of urban water
- Restoring the urban water cycle
- Chemicals and particulates in the urban environs
- Human health impacts of the urban environs
- Computational fluid dynamics
- Coupling of water chemistry with urban hydrology
- Urban snow-snowmelt
His teaching interests include:
- Environmental hydrology
- Stormwater system design
- Wastewater system design