Formerly World Water & Environmental Engineering

Volume 36 / Issue 6
November / December 2013

Groundwater
Increasing well production. Page 13
Hydropower
Curved pipe for penstock routing. Page 16
Potable Water
In-tank aeration lowers THMs. Page 35

Keeping up the flow

of water wells

Wastewater Treatment 33

Improving grit removal design

in wastewater treatment
Understanding the characteristics of grit and its behavior can improve
the design of grit removal systems, leading to substantial operating and
maintenance cost savings. Marcia Sherony of Hydros US Wastewater Division
explains how a better understanding of these issues can prevent problems
caused by grit in wastewater treatment plants.

Grit is the scourge of a wastewater treatment

works a nuisance that causes abrasive wear to
mechanical equipment, increasing maintenance
and operational costs while reducing plant
performance and useful life.
Grit gets into incoming raw sewage from a
variety of sources, e.g. through wind-blown
sands and dust, surface water runoff over
soil and hard surfaces, and collection system
degradation. Grit can be present in substantial
amounts depending on local conditions.
Mechanical equipment such as pumps and
dewatering screws, centrifuges and components
such as bearings, chain links, and seals are at
risk of degradation in performance and even
failure through grit abrasion and wear, which
may lead to expensive shutdowns and equipment
replacement before the end of its expected
design life.
Grit settles out at low ow points in the plant
and over time accumulates to block and choke
the ow. It can lead to a reduction in process
tank volume and increased velocity through
those processes. Grit in aeration processes can
reduce air transfer efciency ratios.
Operators are often dissatised with their grit
removal systems, but may not be clear as to why
they are not performing as required. Even where
a headworks grit removal system is designed
to remove particles up to the conventionally
accepted size of 210 micron, all too often only
a small percentage of the total grit is being
successfully removed.

In some parts of the world, grit is still being

treated as a costly maintenance nuisance
rather than integral to treatment plant design
and operation. There is also a danger that grit
protection and elimination may be designed as
an afterthought where grit is common in large
quantities. Even where operators fully recognize
the problems caused by grit, their equipment
does not remove the correct size of particles in
the inow.

Operators are often

dissatised with their grit
removal systems.
The good news is that grit systems work
as intended when they are designed with
an accurate understanding of the nature
and characteristics of the grit arriving at the
treatment plant and how it actually behaves in
wastewater. In addition, this understanding needs
to be followed through in careful equipment
selection. An effective system addresses both
size and settleability, produces a clean, dry
product for disposal, and minimizes deposits and
accumulations in the plant.
Grit behavior in wastewater ows is a complex
phenomenon governed by a number of factors
such as size, specic gravity, shape, tendency
for agglomeration with other wastewater

constituents, and by environmental conditions

such as wet weather.
Settling velocity is frequently overestimated
as conventional design guidelines target removal
of grit larger than 210 micron, and grit particles
have been assumed to be perfect spheres of silica
sand with a 2.65 specic gravity (SG) settling
fast through laminar conditions in clean water.
Such idealized assumptions do not represent the
true behavior of inuent grit in a wastewater
treatment plant.
To deliver an effective grit removal system
it is important to rst understand the size and
composition of incoming grit, as both the size
and the settling velocity of the grit particles will
determine an effective design. Using both size
distribution and settling velocity distribution
enables the designer to establish a removal
efciency target and determine the minimum
particle size to be removed.
Where possible, a set of grit characteristics
should be developed specic to the wastewater
ow being treated. Where not available, for
example in new treatment plant construction,
a cut point designed at 75-106 micron will
generally remove 85 to 95 percent of the grit
entering the treatment plant.
Certain locations may be known for ne grit,
sugar sand or loess soils (a result of wind
erosion in regions characterized by high winds),
and the ner cut point of 75 micron should be
used. Many other areas may achieve adequate
results with a 106-micron cut point.

Manual removal of grit from a digester Photo by

Hydro International

World Water November/December 2013

Wastewater Treatment 35

Once collected, the grit

must be washed and
dewatered in order to
produce a clean, dry
product for landll.
Meanwhile, the larger, heavier grit that is
transported to the treatment plant during higher
ows seen during diurnal ow cycles, seasonal
variations, and spikes in ow from wet weather
events, is easily captured.
On-site studies
Conventional design criterion for removal of 210
micron has allowed passage of large quantities
of grit into wastewater treatment plants. To
illustrate, Figure 1 shows the size distribution
of grit found from onsite studies at a number of
plants in the United States. It can be seen that in
many plants 50 percent of the incoming grit is
smaller than the conventional design cut point of
210 micron. To modify design criteria to remove
90 percent of the incoming grit, the design cut
point needs to be changed to somewhere between
75 to 150 micron, depending on the actual size
distribution.
The conventional design assumption that
grit settles like silica sand with a specic gravity
of 2.65 is too simplistic. Wastewater grit may
consist of asphalt, limestone, concrete, slowly
degrading organics, and various other materials
that rarely have a specic gravity of 2.65.
Grit particles vary in shape, are rarely spheres,
and many plants have noted that much of their
larger grit is at. An angular particle will settle
more slowly than a sphere as its drag coefcient
is higher so designs allowing for such settling
are desirable.
While in the collection system, the grit particles
are exposed to a variety of common materials
including fats, oils, and greases (FOG), soaps,
scum, and some chemical constituents that can
attach to the grit particles and alter the particles
settling characteristics.

Top of page: the HeadCell system from Hydro

International
Above: Clean silica sand as shown through digital
imaging particle analysis.

Wet weather can result in peak ow and peak

collection of entrained grit; heavy accumulations
may overload collection systems and treatment
plant.
Grit washing and dewatering
Once collected, the grit must be washed and
dewatered in order to produce a clean, dry
product for landll. Washing and dewatering
must each be as effective as the collection device
otherwise the overall system efciency will suffer.
A recent study at a plant showed that while the
aerated grit basin removed 58 percent of total
entering grit volume, the cyclone/screw classier
washing and dewatering equipment only retained
17 percent of what it received. The loss of grit
reduced the systems overall removal efciency
to only 10 percent.
Developing a site-specic design
Each grit removal system developed for a
wastewater treatment plant is different and will
require its own design solution. To achieve grit
collection engineered for a specic treatment
site, it is preferable to rst measure the grit size
distribution and settling velocity. Care must
be taken in collecting the sample to ensure it is
representative of all sizes of incoming grit and
ow conditions such as weather, seasons, inow
channel shape, and depth.
Once sampling is complete, the size distribution and effective settling velocity or effective
specic gravity of the grit sample must be
determined. Both characteristics are needed
in order to have accurate data upon which to
base a system design.
In the absence of site-specic information,
a conservative approach is to base the design
on the smallest practicable particle size, which
would typically be in the 75- to 106-micron
size range.
Future trends
Recent surveys over a range of treatment plants
and localities in the United States have conrmed
the variation in particle specic gravity, and the
effect of organic material on specic gravity
through agglomeration with grit particles. They
conrm that bulk density and specic gravity of
wastewater grit are lower than for clean silica
sand, indicating a shift in design considerations.

Newer editions of design manuals, such as the

Water Environment Federations (USA) Manual
of Practice 8: Design of Municipal Wastewater
Treatment Plants, are recommending targeting
particles smaller than 212 micron in grit system
design and many grit removal systems being
designed today are targeting removal of particles
in the 75-106-150 micron size range.
Advanced Grit Management
In North America, Hydro International is
pioneering the philosophy of Advanced Grit
Management with a stated objective of
+95-percent removal efciency of particles in
the 75- to 150-micron range, and 85 to 95
percent efciency of the total grit load entering
a treatment plant. A new website www.
AdvancedGritManagement.com provides a
clearing house for science-based information
on grit removal design, which can be used by
engineers, operators, and owners to select the
best solution for their projects needs.
Key to this approach has been the intensive
study of grit parameters and behavior, and the
design of grit-removal solutions with a small
footprint, low headloss, low power use, and low
operating costs.
Hydro Internationals HeadCell, accepted as
the next generation of grit separation technology,
is a modular, multiple-tray settleable solids
concentrator that achieves high-performance
removal of ne grit as small as 75 micron. The
company says it eliminates the inefciencies of
conventional forced vortex grit removal systems.
Its stacked tray design optimizes the capacity for
grit separation within a small footprint making
it useful for new and retrot applications.
The Hydro Grit King is an advanced
hydrodynamic vortex separator that augments
gravitational forces to separate grit from water
with minimal headloss. Its small footprint
design uses no power and has no moving parts,
achieving low operating and maintenance costs.
Authors Note
Marcia Sherony is the national sales manager
for Hydros US Wastewater Division, based
in Hillsboro, Oregon. For advice, knowledge
or grit removal product information email
questions@hydro-int.com or visit
www.hydro-int.com.
World Water November/December 2013