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  1. #1
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Post filter fines/polish sieve?

    I was thinking how, in a gravity fed system, you could produce a post-filtration sieve.

    Requriements
    * low maintenance with automatic waste removal and cleaning - so this should be able to run for a 2 week stint without maintainance (enough for a holiday)
    * 30,000 lph capacity
    * 10 microns would be awesome but you're looking at £333 for a mesh to give an idea of cost. However going slightly larger is cheaper so 20-25 micron is a good starting point.
    * positioned post drum and bio to polish

    Flow rate is a product of mesh open area per unit, dimensions in units and the pressure applied.

    So our pressure is very low - it's gravity fed and there's a low pressure applied to the mesh. Without enough area, to allow the flow rate through the mesh open area we get back pressure.

    4" => PI*R^2 = 3.142 * 2*2 = 12.568 square inches of water area (ideal flow)

    So - first flow rate:
    Micron #sieve standard % of open space wet surface area needed
    25 #500 25% (twill) 4" pipe = 12.568 / 0.25 = 50.272 sq inches for clean flow. or a 7.1" x 7.1" screen = 15,000lph clean

    30,000lph = 2x4" = 25.136 / 0.25 = 100.544 sq in clean flow or 10.1" x 10.1" screen for 30,000lph clean

    With a 50% waste load max surface area reduction we need 202 square inches of wet filter area or a 14.3"x14.3" screen wet area.

    With a 75% waste max load surface area reduction we need 402 square inches of wet filter area or 20.1"x20.1".

    For example 25 micron mesh: https://www.themeshcompany.com/produ...33.html#SID=61

    The flow rate would also be constructed by the mesh itself - turbulence, back pressure, event the supporting frame that is required to support the mesh - Personally I'd probably go over kill and simply go for a 20"x20" wet screen area. Now if that's a drum, that's 20" of the drum diameter in the water of a 20" long drum. For a mesh gravity sieve that's a 20" wide sieve with a longer screen because the water isn't presented straight at the mesh and there is a slope required (you could widen the sieve but remember the flow rate has to flow over the entire sieve width.

    So I got thinking about vortices. They're used to separate fines under high pressure, but what if they're used to break up the flow across the mesh - kind of like sweeping a curved mesh.

    IMG_7895.jpg

    Then the idea is to concentrate waste at the tip of the cone, then allow an automated valve to open and close, using the water pressure to flush the waste to drainage. This idea doesn't use gravity and the water to push the waste to the waste collection area but uses vortices to first push the water against the mesh, then lift the waste off the mesh (vortices travel through the mesh in both directions) and then that slowly moves the waste down to the farthest end like a conveyor.

    The length of the vortex chain would depend on the flow rate and pressure (power for the chain). Although the chain wouldn't be stable - there should be enough vortices per minute hitting the screen to provide a good action.

    An extension of this idea is to have the mesh like a drum - a pure cone rather than straight sides. This would will the drum cone to be spray cleaned once in a while but not relying on the spray clean to remove the waste.


    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  2. #2
    Like a drum after a drum?


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  3. #3
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigcarpchaser View Post
    Like a drum after a drum?
    Yes.

    Although you'll get larger pieces (filter snail poop) and dead bio bacteria clumps etc but in the main it would be small particles that could be moved with minimal effort by vortices/turbluence. It wouldn't have to cope with the matted clumps of algae for example that have already been filtered.

    I did think about a vortex with a separator plate - like workshop dust filters, but the particle mass vs the water mass is too low, so I suspect they'd simply just flow back out of the filter. Works well on sand as a prefilter for a pond vaccum I made once.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  4. #4
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Just reading up.. it's pithing down outside..


    If you have vortices in a chain they look like this:
    Unknown.jpg
    Source: Going with the Flow | The Dish on Sciencethedishonscience.stanford.edu

    So you can can see what I mean by having a filter and having the vortices push the waste along the mesh. The key is getting the size of the object creating the vortex, the speed of flow and the power. Possibly this may help: Vortex Street - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

    Now.. covering a couple of ideas at once.

    First is - reducing the damage caused by water falls and water flowing down hill. There was a photo of a drop where instead of using water hitting like a waterfall, the control using a number of vortices reduced the energy hitting the bottom of the watercourse to reduce erosion. There are also on way valves and restrictive created that resist high pressure by using a chain of vortices, causing a vortex created by a side chamber to block some of the flow.. I can't find the image - a hill side and a concrete weir with alternating chambers at the side all the way down the hill side to control the water and prevent damage without moving parts.

    This is a neat paper - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765293/ - this is using a vortex to manage the water being drive through a pipe with a junction. The pressure of the pipe outside from the junction etc can be tuned and it separates particles according to size. Including an example of separating all the larger particles. It needs a laminar flow by the looks of it using the 'sorter' at the start. Now a flow rate of 2x4" is too large to realistically catch all at once. However a chain of these could easily remove all of the fines in a flow of water but the danger is that it will slow/restrict the flow - acting like the like the restrictive valve.

    So back to having leaky walls - I've tried to show my thinking here - the mesh walls (blue) and the push of the waste to the walls (green) and lift of waste from the walls (red) as the vortex returns. Input from the left, outlet from the right - waste concentration point in the middle right.
    Unknown - with arrows.jpg

    This was inspired by watching a couple of flows of particles on the Draco drum, move both through the mesh but also return back through the mesh caused by turbulence.

    Using a stainless steel coffee fliter cone would give a good approximation, scale down the input and use an obstruction to create the vortex chains.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  5. #5
    I think I see where you’re at, instead of a parabolic sieve it’s conical?
    How about an adaption of this method?

    https://qc-teichfilter.de/english-site/


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  6. #6
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigcarpchaser View Post
    I think I see where you’re at, instead of a parabolic sieve it’s conical?
    How about an adaption of this method?

    https://qc-teichfilter.de/english-site/
    I've seen that before - basically an inverse drum. Only issue I have with that is the pump is running all the time although that could the driven by air jets through the mesh instead either by a back rinse water 'burp' of air, a constant lift or simply using air jets to dislodge the waste. Air may cause the fines to float with their own little bubble but the resulting foaming may also help remove some dissolved organics like a fractionator.
    An alternative - rather than have a spray bar is simply have a propeller that forces the liquid back out - unsettling the waste. That way it only needs triggering once every so often
    The plus point is that the entire mesh is used as a wet area.

    On the vortex idea - I was thinking of a more aggressive version that could be done using Taylor-Couette flows - having a spinning cylinder inside with a mesh being between the wall and the internal cylinder. Depending on the setup - you could get either stable or unstable configurations of vortices you don't simply get stuff stuck to the mesh but builds up.

    Only issue with agitating the water too much is it breaks soft fines up further. So you want a strong enough vortex to interact with the fine but not strong enough to obliterate it.

    I was thinking horizontal rather than vertical for the 'drum' but horizontal would work - even two (one for each outlet). However adding gravity provides additional force for faster coalesce. Thinking of rotating upwards and reversing - so the water enters the opposite way around as a ring and the obstruction then creates a ring vortex that travels down the mesh, unsettling the waste towards the outside edge of the pipe - perhaps a but then comes - a ring of holes which could get blocked so not perhaps the best way unless the holes are large and a air-lift-esque outer chamber then takes the waste and a valve operates - the water still forces the waste out through the output pipes to waste.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  7. #7
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    Interesting paper in making a concentrator using a TC with cylinders and a membrane: N

    This is seems to be very close to my idea about using TC and a 25 micron screen between. The concentrate is the waste.

    Also seen an interesting idea of putting air into the bottom - essentially being like a fractionator. The bubbles then are torn apart by the vortices.

  8. #8
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion NickK-UK's Avatar
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    This looks interesting - 1.0x1.2m 500 mesh (25 micron) stainless steel £192: https://www.robinsonwirecloth.co.uk/...ture-p53861667

    Although woven (so not the sieve style triangular welded) it would provide a large surface area for a polishing filter. With a 26% open area brand new, and I suspect probably 15% in use, it would need to be this size to allow a decent flow rate. So if we then make a capability of taking a decent load 15% so let's divide by 10.. 0.15% open area once we have waste filtered and sat in the mesh between washes.

    As I'm using two 110mm pipes, or 0.011m, each pipe's area is PI*(0.0110^2) = 3.142 * 0.0110*0.0110 = 0.0003801m2. So I have 0.00076027m2 of pipe area.

    0.00076027 / 0.0015 (ie 0.15% open area with waste) = 0.51m2 of filter area, or a wet area 0.72m x 0.72m of mesh. So with a large open support meshing and some mesh used to bond the edges - we're likely to be about right.

    If we put the mesh into a cylinder this is likely to be a radius of 19-20cm x 1.0m. So a drum with a 40cm diameter would work. Alternatively you could use the 1.0m circumference and then make it 1.2m long. It's almost able to use blue barrel HPDE of different sizes for the drum chassis and outer casing making it much cheaper to build (other than the mesh!) for the size compared to 6mm Polypropoleyne. A few wood support structs on the outside and to keep the thing stable on its side.

    A 220l drum is 568cm diameter, and almost a meter long
    A 60L drum is 40cm diameter and 60cm long.

    If it's possible then you could plastic weld part of one 60l drum on the the other to make the inner drum, then the remainder of the 60L drum could be used for a inlet chamber plastic welded to the outside of the 220l drum. Then you put some rollers in to support the inner drum, cut the inner drum so that it acts like a support mesh for the 25 micron mesh. A piece of pressure pipe with a triangle to help support the weight would then work to take the waste out. A 1" pvc could then be used with spray heads.

    Just thinking about what method would be best to move the drum - there's a couple of options:
    * gear cut and stuck to the middle of the drum with a motor - needs accurate cutting and a motor/servo with a planetary gearbox may be the way forward to provide the best torque.
    * a shaft mounted drive through the outer casing - needs good water sealing
    * a set of magnets on the outside of the drum casing with a set of electrical coils on the outside - then use a simple servo phase control to move the drum (this could be 24V).

    Looking at this place for the plastics: https://shop.smithsofthedean.co.uk as they offer both drums and fittings etc plus.. they can resell recycled food grade drums etc.

    As a comparison - here's the cost of a 316 stainless steel support mesh: https://www.fhbrundle.co.uk/groups/0..._2_0mm_or_less ~£60 or the effort of combining two of these at £15 each - plus welding cost: https://shop.smithsofthedean.co.uk/1...top-1205-p.asp is likely to be more than the cost of the stainless steel mesh.

    Just thinking that a stainless steel or plastic drum lid may make good end pieces - one end cut open for the dirty water.
    14000l, my mutts: Chargoi (2010), Doitsu (2022), Tancho (2022), Kujaku (2022), Hi Utusri (2022)

  9. #9
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Sansai perks842's Avatar
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    I use these guys for my 316 mesh. Having replaced the s**tty nylon one that came in my RDF.

    https://www.themeshcompany.com/produ...33.html#SID=61

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