Computer-Aided Design of Sequencing Batch Reactors

Jeremy Dudley, David L Russell and Youri Amerlinck

Introduction
The activated sludge process was first conceived as a batch reactor, operating in drawand-fill mode, around 1914. The work of Arden and Lockett in England pioneered the
development of the activated sludge process. The first activated sludge system was a
fill and draw reactor (our modern day SBR) which was built in Davyhulme, Manchester,
UK. By 1917, the first continuous-flow plant was built in Worcester and Wittington, UK.
At that time the literature never considered or discussed the problems associated with
flow variations, bulking sludge, and the initial high oxygen demand when sewage was
first introduced into the oxidation tank. The high oxygen demand and the flow variation
led to the development of the conventional activated sludge plant as we know it today6.
The developers of the first activated sludge process did not consider the difficulties of
operating the process. Without adequate automated control systems, the operation of
an SBR can be a continual juggling act. In a multiple tank system, one tank is filling,
while a second is reacting, a third decanting and a fourth is settling or resting. The first
operators of the fill and draw plants may have been good candidates for early retirement
because of the continual demand for attention to the plant. By 1920 the fill and draw
system was replaced by a continuous process and the first plants were built in the US
The first step aeration or tapered aeration plant was built in 1940 at Wards Island, New
York. From that point on, until the mid-1970s (at least in the US) the batch process or
SBR was largely ignored or consigned to the laboratory.
In all this development and change, the problems associated with bulking sludge were
noted, but were poorly understood. At the time (Heukelekian and others in the 1940s6)
considered bulking sludge to be an environmental disease of the activated sludge
brought on by poor (high) C: N ratios, low dissolved oxygen (DO) levels in the aeration
tanks, and increasing organic loads on the plants6. But sludge bulking began to become
an operationally important issue.
In the mid-1970s Dr. Robert Irvine refocused attention on the Sequencing Batch
Reactor. At that time, the SBR was the new hot topic in waste treatment1. The SBR
was promoted as being a pure plug flow system that produced a crystal-clear effluent,
and had no sludge bulking problems. Because it operated as a fill and draw tank it was
ideal for small communities or where there was an intermittent flow at periods of low
flow, just let the balancing tank fill. When full, it would discharge into the SBR. A typical
cycle is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1- SBR cycle

The SBR process was then modified further instead of having a holding tank and an
SBR, why not have two SBRs? The fill period could be extended; reliability was
improved, as there were two duplicated items of equipment rather than a dedicated
holding tank (unable to aerate or settle/decant) and the SBR tank. And still a good
quality effluent was being produced. Following on from the success of SBRs other semibatch systems were introduced, using compartmented reactors and allowing inflow
during the settle periods. Part of this development was facilitated by breakthroughs in
control systems technology. The development of inexpensive control systems which
automated the sequencing of the SBR became the standard. SBRs moved to become,
again, a mainstream process variant9.
Storms on the horizon
SBRs were going in everywhere. And then problems began to reappear. Sludge bulking
re-appeared, despite the claims that SBRs guaranteed that bulking was a thing of the
past. Effluent quality was no longer maintained. And there appeared to be little
understanding of why this was the case.
The problem appears to be worse in the UK. This, in turn, appears to have been some
US-based vendors selling SBRs without accommodating for the different effluent
standards. Many US sites have a discharge permit based on a monthly average. Most
UK sites have a two-tier consent: the first is that the effluent quality must be, 95% of the
time, and allowing for the statistical issues associated with estimating 95% compliance,
below a set value. And a second tier is then imposed, which must be met 100% of the
time without fail. Some of the SBRs were designed without understanding the difference
between meeting a monthly target a 50%-ile and a 95%-ile. Failures were bound to
occur.
Existing design methods
There are several methods for designing SBR systems. Almost all of them are based
upon the development of a steady state design, and then volumetric apportionment of
the system as if it were an extended aeration system. The conventional approach to
design is based upon an F/M (food to micro-organism) ratio, treatment cycle duration
and hydraulic retention time. The Ten States Standards, one of the more widespread
2

design standards in the US, does not consider SBRs. Common design standards are
given in the following table.
Table 1 Typical SBR design figures

Parameter
F/M
Treatment cycle
duration (hours)
Low water MLSS
Mg/L
Hydraulic
retention
time
(hours)

F/M (domestic)
MLSS & MLVSS

Sequencing Batch Reactor Design Basis

Typical figures5
Low Loading Rate
Medium-High Loading Rate
Municipal
Industrial
Municipal
Industrial
0.05-0.1/day
0.05-0.1/day
0.15-0.4
0.15-0.6
4.8-6.0
4.8-48
4
4-24
4000-4500

4000-6000

2000-2500

2000-4000

18-24

Variable

6 14

Variable

Iowa Criteria4
Nitrifying
No Nitrifying
0.05
0.10
0.15-0.4
Calculate at low water and select an appropriate value.
WEF SBR design guidelines2
Cycle time
Design F/M
(hours)
ratio

Flow, gal/d
(m3/d)

Detention
time (hours)

2,000832,000
(7.5- 1352)
Settling time
(hours)

7.6-49

3-24

0.037-0.32

Effluent
BOD5
mg/l
5-11

Effluent
SS
mg/l
6-18

Effluent
NH3
mg/l
1.8-10

0.75-3

SRT
0.028-43 1

Reaction
time
(hours)
0.7-18

If there is any guidance from these examples it appears to be in the fact that there are
extreme ranges of data over which one can design an SBR, and still obtain a
reasonably good effluent. Additional information in the design manual goes on to
provide indication of high treatment efficiency often above 95% and high system
reliability with good effluent quality. Even Metcalf and Eddy1 use a modified MLSS basis
for design of an SBR, and it is designed much in the same manner as an extended
aeration plant is designed.

The range of data are quite extreme, and may be misleading. The actual values are 0.028, 43,
18.8, 0.067, and 15.45 days so that a designer could pick almost any value desired for an SRT.

A common design approach is shown in Figure 2. Computer-aided modelling can help

with much of the design, but not with some of the critical starting points: the design
flows and loads and the choice of configuration. (Having chosen the configuration the
modelling can help evaluate the design for meeting design objectives, and as an
iterative procedure can assist in deciding which of competing alternatives would be the
preferred option.)

Definition of Input Data

Effluent consent
Dry weather and maximum storm flows
Average organic and nitrogen loads

Process Configuration
Plant with or without balancing tanks
Filling strategy (continuous or
intermittent)

Cycle Design Assumptions

Duration of cycle times for fill, react,
settle, decant, idle
Adequate adjustment for storm flows

Tank Hydraulic Design

Tank number, volume and plan area
Sludge age/loading rate/SSVI
Assessment of bulking risk

Equipment Capacities
Aeration
Waste activated sludge withdrawal
Decanting

Verification of Performance
Dynamic simulations (if required)
Pilot tests (if required)
Nitrogen balance 5
Figure 2 Typical steps in SBR design

Many of the design methods in common use are based on steady-state assumptions. A
common method is that presented in Randall et al7. Because of the simple design
equations there is no assessment of the sludge settling: will the sludge blanket stay well
below the water level during the decant cycle 2? The suggested approach is to calculate
the fill volume as the daily volume (with a suitable peaking factor) divided by the number
of cycles and SBRs (less one, since one is always outside the fill cycle). The SBR
volume is then calculated as
Total volume =

Fill volume
1 decant safety factor MLSS SVI / 10 6

This equation assumes that the SVI is a good assessment of the volume that the sludge
will occupy at the end of settlement 3. But the SVI test is affected by the settlement depth
being in a 50 cm cylinder, rather than a 3 m or deeper tank. For a deep tank, or a long
settling time, this may require a bigger SBR than is necessary. There are other
equations, to assess if the SBR will meet the required ammonia effluent value the
effluent BOD and suspended solids are assumed, because of the superficial handling of
settlement. The recent IWA monograph9 on SBRs glosses over the design aspects,
possibly because of the problems in developing a simple design method.
The fill volume, in its turn, is calculated as
Fill volume =

Daily flow peaking factor

(Number of SBRs 1) Number of cycles per day

The design is driven by the hydraulics, and the treated volume uses a peaking factor:
should this be the ratio of average daily maximum to average flow? Average monthly
maximum? Maximum allowed flow to treatment? The play-off is between risk of
insufficient available volume against purchase cost. Without a design approach that
allows the cycle times to be studied in greater depth, to see what scope there is for
variation in the cycle times, the steady-state design approach exposes an unknown
element of risk.
Another approach, available through a spreadsheet posted on the web, allows the
engineer to become an integral part of an iterative method for designing SBRs: guess
the biomass concentration in the SBR, and the nitrogen mass. Run the spreadsheet. Do
the numbers that you guessed match those calculated in specified spreadsheet cells? If

One assumption for obtaining volume is to calculate the desired end point MLSS and make an
allowance for the volume based upon the assumed or measured growth rate and a 20% factor of
safety for volume of the sludge blanket based upon the average MLSS.

This equation also shows that initially increasing the safety factor will result in requiring a larger
SBR volume. But increasing the safety factor further will produce a negative volume readily
identified when doing manual calculations, but a possible cause of confusion when such
procedures are computerised.

not, update the guessed values and rerun the spreadsheet. If you need to use more
SBRs than the spreadsheet was intend to represent then you have to modify all the
formulae, to allow for the changes introducing a fragility into the design approach that
would be best avoided.
Dynamic models
The use of dynamic models allows inclusion of more realistic conditions. Typically SBR
models, implemented in packages such as STOAT or WEST, include the following:

A choice of internationally-accepted detailed activated sludge models, such as

the IWA models4 ASM 1, 2d and 3;

An internationally-accepted settling model, such as the Takacs model8;

Solving the reaction equations during the fill, react, settle and decant cycles,
automatically recognising the effects of aerobic and anoxic periods;

Automatically resolving sludge yield through the models, requiring fewer

assumptions about apparent sludge yield production from an SBR;

Allowing multiple SBRs to be represented, so that with a diurnal and weekly

sewage profile the SBRs will receive different flows and loads at different times,
and to each other.

Although the SVI is not a good estimate of the sludge volume in a deep tank it
does correlate better against the sludge settling properties. The dynamic models
are thus better set up to estimate the sludge blanket depth.

Typical layouts for a four SBR system are shown below. The first indicates what can be
done in STOAT, and the second in WEST. The differences are superficial although
the two programs may look different the underlying approaches and results are
comparable.
This system was run with the following parameters:
Maximum volume: 1567.5 m3
Minimum volume: 1292.5 m3
Surface area: 275 m2
The operational settings were:
SSVI 100 ml/g
Cycle time 4 h
Aerobic fill 1 h
React time 2 h
Settle time 0. 5 h
Decant time 0.5 h
7

Figure 3 - Typical 4-basin layout in STOAT

Figure 4 - Typical layout in WEST

Seven days of sewage, with an hourly variation, was used. The flow, BOD and
ammonia can be seen in the following figure, and summarised in Table 2.

Figure 5 - Influent sewage profile

Table 2 - Sewage characteristics

Mean
Minimum
Maximum

Flow, m/h
(MGD)
74.6 (0.48)
29.0 (0.18)
137 (0.88)

SS (mg/l)

BOD (mg/l)

88.4
0.0
121.0

182.3
77.0
253.0

NH3-N
(mg/l)
29.6
18.0
37.0

Different models use slightly different sewage characterisation. BOD-based models

typically ignore any organic nitrogen, assuming that this will be accommodated by the
(unmodelled) effect of nitrogen uptake by the biomass. The BOD is split into two
fractions, particulate and soluble and only the soluble BOD is available for oxidation
and biomass growth. Particulate BOD must be converted into soluble BOD before it is
available. COD-based models do comparable things; the COD may be treated as four
fractions: degradable and nondegradable, soluble and particulate. They also usually
require information about the organic nitrogen (directly, in the case of the ASM1 model,
and less so for ASM2 and ASM3, as these use stoichiometric ratios against the COD).
Where data is provided as BOD and ammonia then the COD-based models must have
assumptions about the organic nitrogen and the ratio of COD to BOD and degradable
COD to total COD. These ratios are nearly universal when treating domestic sewage
and are documented in standard textbooks1 and the IWA report on the activated sludge
models4.
The simulation results can be seen for ammonia in Figure 6. Despite the simulation
using a repeating seven-day period for four weeks there is no equivalent repeating
pattern for the SBRs effluent. (The pattern almost repeats, but not quite.) This is caused
9

by the effect of the SBRs receiving different volumes and loads with each cycle during
the seven-day period, as can be seen by in Figure 7 the result is that there is no
equivalent to a traditional plug flow system, which would show a repeating seven-day
cycle in the effluent quality.
The average effluent ammonia is 0.8 mg/l, but the 95-percentile value is 1.4 mg/l. With a
1 mg/l effluent standard this would be an acceptable design in the US, but would fail in
the UK 4. The sampling requirements for SBRs are more difficult than for continuous-flow
systems, because of the intermittent nature of the discharge. This can result in
requirements for flow balancing on the discharge, and also for more frequent,
automated, sampling of the effluent both issues that can reduce some of the claimed
cost-savings attributed to SBR systems.

Figure 6 - Combined effluent: Ammonia

This example does not compare the ease of meeting effluent standards between the USA and the
UK, but rather brings out the differences in the understanding of the standards on the resulting
design. The regulators would adjust the numerical requirements to ensure comparable
environmental objectives.

10

Figure 7 SBR tank volumes

Cycle times
The cycle times in SBRs are an additional operational parameter that can be adjusted to
improve performance. Unlike continuous-flow systems, where changing the spatial
variation of the treatment system requires expensive alterations, SBRs can readily
achieve the same effect using temporal variations and these require only modifying a
program in the PLC systems controlling the SBRs. The fill period usually has little scope
for variation, because of the need to accept the incoming sewage flow, but the use of
the idle time does allow for variations in the reaction, settling and decant times.
What happens as the times allowed for settling and decant vary? Clearly, decant with
no settle will decant mixed liquor, and produce an unacceptable effluent. Equally clear is
that a long settle, with a high-speed decant, and may cause turbulence that will lift the
sludge blanket. Some of these effects can be represented in the models, as they
include an induced upflow caused by the decant flow.
It is easy to plot the variation of the sludge blanket depth and the water level during the
simulation. Figure 8 shows that the settle period, at 30 minutes, leaves plenty of time for
the sludge blanket to descend well below the decant levels. Using this a control system
can be set up that the normal operational period is 30 minutes settle followed by 30
11

minutes decant, but in an emergency this can be accelerated to 10 minutes settle. The
decanting period usually cannot be accelerated, as the mechanical movement of a weir
or the diameter of a submerged pipe sets the discharge flowrate.

Figure 8 - Levels in a single cycle

12

Figure 9 - Levels with a 10-minute settle

If the various pollutants are examined, as in Figure 10, additional information can be
gathered. The dissolved oxygen control algorithm uses a PI controller with the
simulation package defaults. There is a high DO during the fill period (modelled as an
air flow with no attempt at DO control the air flow is used for mixing), with DO starting
to fall off during the start of the reaction cycle. The minimum air flow is too high, so that
the DO is maintained well above the desired set point of 2 mg/l, and this high DO
means that there is continued reaction during the settle and decant phase, until the
oxygen is consumed. Denitrification does not take place because of the exhaustion of
the soluble BOD. It should be possible to reduce the air provided to this SBR design
and still maintain the desired effluent quality.
The concentrations of pollutants are low, so that a shortened react time could be
considered in an emergency. For one or two cycles, depending on the consent regime,
it may be possible to dispense with oxidation completely and rely solely upon dilution as
a means of getting the required volumes through the system.

13

Figure 10 - Variation of pollutants in a cycle

Adjusting the fill cycle from aerobic to anoxic (unaerated) results in slightly higher
ammonia, but in return a much lower nitrate. Although the fill period is unaerated there
is initially a significant dissolved oxygen this is caused by the stratification of the SBR
during the settling period, and the rapid settling of the sludge blanket so that much of
the tank volume has insufficient biomass to deplete the oxygen When the tank contents
are mixed, at the end of the settling cycle, then the oxygen within the bulk of the tank
increases.

14

Figure 11 - Pollutants with unaerated fill

Design MLSS
Because of the batch reactor of an SBR designing for the MLSS is difficult. The MLSS
varies during the cycle because if the effects of biomass growth and the dilution of the
incoming sewage. In addition, wasting during the settling and decanting phases is
affected by the varying concentration of the settled sludge unlike a settler there is no
mass balance around the settler to help decide the appropriate wastage flow rate.
The dynamic models again allow for an assessment of the wastage on the operating
MLSS, and for the effects of the chosen MLSS on effluent quality. Here we present
results for three scenarios, with MLSS values of approximately 2,000 mg/l, 1,100 mg/l
and 400 mg/l.
The effluent BOD is around 4 mg/l whether the MLSS is 2,000 (Figure 12) or 1,1000
mg/l (Figure 13), rising to around 6 at 400 mg/l (Figure 14). Whether adequate
flocculation could be guaranteed at an MLSS of 400 mg/l would be a design question,
currently outside the area for computer models. There are conventional activated sludge
plants that have operated at this low a level, although in the UK the common guidelines
would recommend operating at 1,000 mg/l or higher, and preferably above 2,000 mg/l.
The effluent TSS does not vary much with changing MLSS (Figure 16 and Figure 14).
Providing the sludge blanket can settle to well below the decant position then the
15

effluent TSS is affected more by the solids that are left in suspension than by issues of
MLSS or SSVI. The conventional Takacs model normally has the limiting effluent TSS
values set as a constant fraction of the MLSS (typically, around 0.1-0.5% of the MLSS)
which should result in an improved effluent quality as the MLSS drops; but at low
concentrations the solids settling velocity decreases, so that effluent quality
deteriorates.
The most common reason for operating at a high MLSS is to ensure nitrification with a
reasonable aeration tank volume. In the simulations presented here the ammonia is
around 0.2 mg/l at 1,100 mg/l MLSS (Figure 15), rising to around 2 mg/l at 400 mg/l
(Figure 14). The nitrification performance appears to be excellent even at the low
MLSS, and would suggest that there can be scope for further optimisation of the base
design, to reduce the total volume (the decant volume cannot be adjusted, as this is set
by the hydraulic load entering the plant: but the non-decanted volume is a design
variable).

Figure 12 Effluent BOD at 2,000 mg/l MLSS

16

Figure 13 Effluent BOD at 1,100 mg/l MLSS

Figure 14 Effluent BOD, NH3 and TSS at 400 mg/l MLSS

17

Figure 15 Effluent NH3 at 1,100 mg/l MLSS

Figure 16 Effluent TSS at 1,100 mg/l MLSS

18

Storm effects
One of the most important aspects of SBR design is how the system will behave during
a storm. The steady-state design cannot represent a storm, and so storms are handled
by the combination of safety factors and peaking factors. The real plant has to be
designed with a control system that contains a panic mode for when all the tanks are
full and still there is inflow to the site. Typical panic modes are to let the excess flow
bypass treatment or to begin an emergency settle/decant cycle while permitting inflow.
With the dynamic model it is possible to properly study the effects of magnitude and
duration for a storm, and see how the SBRs will perform. It is also possible to implement
a representation of the control system to study how that control will perform ahead of
commissioning 5.
An example of this is shown in Figure 17. This shows that a short storm, where the
flows get up to three times the average, if sustained for more than about two hours will
result in the SBRs being unable to accept the storm flow. Further simulations can then
be done to study the controller behaviour under such storm conditions and provide an
operating envelope around the storm magnitude and duration that can be accepted.

Figure 17 - Storm bypass behaviour

5

SBR control systems are a vendors proprietary knowledge, and consequently none of the current
commercial simulator packages have a full representation of the control system for an SBR.

19

Bulking revisited
The current generation of activated sludge models cannot represent bulking behaviour.
Sludge settleability is a model given, chosen by the user. There are models that can
estimate the ratio of filaments to nonfilaments, but these models have not been fully
proven, and going from estimates of the filament to nonfilament ratio to an estimate of
settling behaviour is outside the capability of even these models.
However, there is other laboratory work (Dennis and Irvine, 1979), backed up by the
empirical understanding of bulking causes, which indicates that bulking behaviour in
SBRs is exacerbated by having long fill periods. A short, sharp, fill is more likely to
produce a good-settling sludge. Dispensing with a balancing tank and switching to a
system of SBRs may well be the cause of some of the recent occurrences of bulking
behaviour.

Stirred Specific Volume Index SSVI3.5(ml/g)

That plug flow behaviour promotes a good-settling sludge is well-known, and has been
since the 1970s, as seen in the following diagram10.

300

200

100

0
0.001

0.01

0.1

Plug Flow

1.0

10

Complete Mixing

Figure 18 Variation of SSVI3.5 with degree of plug-flow behaviour

Although the models cannot predict the likelihood of bulking they can assess the
robustness of the design to bulking, by carrying out simulations with several assumed
SVI values 6. The effect of this variation is shown on the sludge blanket in Figure 19 and
6

The simulation programs use the SSVI3.5 rather than the SVI this is a stirred sludge volume
index in which the results are reported at a reference concentration of 3.5 g/l MLSS. The result of
using a defined test cylinder, stirring conditions and reporting concentration has been that the
correlation between SSVI3.5 and the sludge settling parameters is improved other settleability
measures, such as the SVI test.

20

the effluent solids in Figure 20. Typical design values are that SSVI = 100 is a goodsettling sludge; 120 is a typical sludge; 150 is a bulking sludge; and 200 is an extreme
value. The figures show that the this design would be acceptable for a bulking sludge,
but that if the sludge showed unusually poor settleability then the sludge storage volume
would be insufficient.

Figure 19 - Sludge blanket variation with SSVI

21

Figure 20 - Effluent solids variation with SSVI

Aeration capacity
Calculating the aeration requirements for SBR systems is more difficult than for
continuous-flow plant, especially when there are multiple tanks. A common approach for
a continuous flow system is to evaluate the oxygen demand under average load and
then to apply a peaking factor to estimate the maximum daily requirement.
For an SBR let us take the numbers used above: 1 hour fill, 2 hour react, 4 hour cycle,
and 4 SBRs in total. Each SBR has to degrade in 2 hours 1 hours worth of incoming
load. So each SBR needs half the aerator capacity of a continuous flow system. But if
each SBR has a dedicated blower then, with four SBRs, we need to install twice as
much aeration capacity as for a continuous flow system and we know that this excess
capacity will be under-utilised.
However, each SBR also behaves like a plug flow tank, where the oxygen demand will
be much higher at the start of the react phase than at the end. In a continuous flow
system we compensate for this by providing less aeration capacity at the tail end of the
plant. In an SBR we need a control system that can provide the turndown, but where the
aerator power has to be sized for the peal demand at the start of the cycle. If we
assume that the early part of the react cycle has a peak of 1.5 over the average for the
cycle we then conclude that the SBR system, using the simple approach of dedicated

22

blowers, will need something like three times the installed capacity of a continuous flow
system.
To improve on the provision of the aeration capacity requires allowing for two factors.
The first is that the SBRs do not all operate with the same oxygen demand at the same
time, so that by looking at the demand across all the SBRs there is scope to optimise
the aeration capacity. This is most easily done with a computer model, where the
demand can be summed for all the SBRs. The second factor, which current process
simulators do not handle, is that the water depth in the SBRs may be different, implying
that the air distribution control will need to handle the effect of these different discharge
heads on the blower performance.
The typical profile, for one SBR, for our simulations is given in the following figures.
These show the oxygen demand during a two-day period (Figure 21) and the oxygen
demand converted to a cumulative frequency response (Figure 22). They show the
difference between looking at single SBR and the system of all four SBRs.
The smoothing effect of looking at all four SBRs is clearly evident; the continued peaks
in the oxygen supply are as a result of the uncontrolled aerated fill cycle, and could be
further optimised. The demand frequency curve shows that there is always a need for
aeration in at least one SBR, and that the turndown required across the whole system is
around 3:1 (50:15 kg O2 h), compared to a single SBR with a range of 30:0 kg O2/h.

Figure 21 Typical oxygen demand variation with time

23

Figure 22 Typical oxygen demand variation frequency

Applications
Programs such as STOAT and WEST have been used by operating companies as part
of their preliminary design, to ensure that SBRs will be acceptable to meet the required
effluent standards. This usage has also provided a benchmark against which vendor
designs can be assessed too small a recommended volume may indicate that the
proposed design will have many problems meeting the acceptance tests, while too large
a volume implies that a cheaper offering should be available. When used this way
successful tenders have come close to the design recommendations from these
programs, providing greater confidence for the operating companies that their capital
investment will meet the regulators requirements on both environmental and financial
criteria.
Conclusions
SBRs can offer flexible treatment systems, but recent operational problems have cast a
cloud over their continued acceptance. Designs have been based on empirical methods
adopted from steady-state models, with many fudge factors to handle the dynamic
nature of SBRs. Vendor design methods are not usually disclose the vendors do
accept the effluent guarantees and may be based on steady-state or dynamic models,
but appear to be commonly spreadsheet-based methods, using greatly simplified
activated sludge models. The commercial simulators, while not including the proprietary
knowledge of the vendors, provide a framework for analysing many of the known design
requirements for SBR systems, and can assist in identifying potential design shortcomings.
24

References
1. Metcalf and Eddy, 1991, Wastewater Engineering: Treatment, Disposal and Reuse,
McGraw Hill, 3rd Edition
2. RW Dennis and RL Irvine, 1979, Effect of fill: react ratio on sequencing batch
biological reactors, Journal WPCF 51(2) 55-263
3. WEF, Design of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants Volume 2, 4th Ed., Water
Environment Federation, Alexandria, VA
4. M Henze, W Gujer, T Mio and M van Loosdrecht, 200, Activated sludge models
ASM1, ASM2, ASM2d and ASM3, IWA Publishing, London, UK, ISBN 1 900222 24
8
5. TL. Kirschenmana and S Hameed, 200, A Regulatory Guide to Sequencing Batch
Reactors, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, presented at the Second
International Symposium of Sequencing Batch Reactor Technology, July 10-12,
2000, Narbonne, France
6. K Mikkelson, 1995, AquaSBR Design Manual, Aqua Aerobic Systems, Rockford Il,
USA
7. D Orhon and N Artan, 1994, Modeling of Activated Sludge Systems, Technomic
Press, Lancaster, PA, USA
8. CW Randall, JL Barnard and HD Stensel, 1992, Design and retrofit of wastewater
treatment plants for biological nutrient removal, Technomic Publishing, Lancaster,
PA, USA
9. I Takacs, GG Patry and D Nolasco, 1991, "A dynamic model of the clarificationthickening process", Water Research 25(10) 1263-1271
10. PA Wilderer, RL Irvine and MC Goronszy, 2001, Sequencing batch reactor
technology, IWA Publishing, London, UK, ISBN 1 900222 21 3
11. B Chambers and E Tomlinson, 1982, Bulking of Activated Sludge, Ellis Horwood
Publishers, Chichester, UK

Jeremy Dudley, PhD, is a chartered engineer at WRc plc (Swindon, UK;

Dudley@wrcplc.co.uk) and one of the principal developers of the STOAT modelling
engine. David L Russell, PE, is a chemical engineer and president of Global
Environmental Operations inc. (Lilburn, GA; dlr@mindspring.com), which distributes
WEST software. Youri Amerlinck is a Process Consultant for HEMMIS, NV in Kortrijk,
Belgium (YA@hemmis.be). Hemmis makes WEST software.
25