Split flow water treatment plant

Claim 1

In a water treatment plant comprising a container, inlet means to introduce an influent flow of water into said container to be treated therein, tubular settling means in said container for settling the water at a flow velocity sufficiently low to provide substantially laminar flow through said tubular settling means, filtration means in said container and downstream of said tubular settling means for filtering the water received from said tubular settling means, and discharge means for discharging water received from said filtration means, a settling basin containing said tubular settling means, said settling basin comprising: a pair of longitudinally horizontally spaced plenums; a pair of banks of generally horizontally extending settling tubes disposed in said settling basin between said plenums, one of said banks being downstream of the other, said tubes having a total cross-sectional area such that for a predetermined maximum flow rate through the plant, the flow velocity through each tube will be such as to maintain substantially laminar flow therein, whereby settleable material in the water entering said tubes may settle out of said water and deposit upon the bottoms of said tubes as it passes therethrough from one of said pair of plenums to the other thereof; an inlet baffle positioned upstream of and adjacent to each of said banks of generally horizontally extending settling tubes, each of said inlet baffles comprising a set of spaced apart, generally parallel vertical sheets having a plurality of perforations therein, said sheets forming a set of vertical channels therebetween, the flow of water impinging on a first one of said vertical sheets and thereafter flowing, in a direction perpendicular to said first sheet, through said perforations therein and passing into the first one of said set of vertical channels and thence through the perforations in the others of said sheets sequentially to the last one thereof, said flow then entering the adjacent bank of generally horizontally extending settling tubes, the kinetic energy in said water dissipating rapidly as said flow passes through said baffles, said inlet baffles providing uniform flow distribution across the mouths of said settling tubes in said banks to facilitate uniform flow therethrough; and an inclined diverting plate extending from the downstream end of the lowermost tube in the first of said banks to the upper upstream end of the inlet baffle adjacent the second of said banks, said plate dividing the influent flow of water between said banks.