Optimization of Wastewater Treatment plants control in flow variation conditions due to rain events

Flow variations influence the management of the Wastewater Treatment plants (WWTp) with a higher impact on the small and medium size plants. Normally flow variations are connected to pollutant variations and thus influence the process behavior in the different plant’s sections. In this context, it is very important to carry out management policies able to control the pollutants variations thought the combined use of modeling and monitoring instruments. This study is divided in two main parts: The first part consists in an analysis of monitoring data from the Bologna real scale plant fed by urban combined sewage. We focus on a functioning comparison between dry and rain weather conditions and their effects on the parameters monitored in the plant. The second part deals with the implementation of WWT model software in order to simulate the plant’s behavior in the different operational states. We propose a comparison analysis of the results obtained through a selected panel of widely used software for WWTp modeling and simulation. In a final part, we discuss the operational states of the plant and the new necessary interventions. Furthermore we compare the simulated and real data to test the model agreement with the transitory state and its reliability during those particular operational states.