Abstract
This study was aimed at estimating effective shear stress working on flat sheet membrane by the addition of fluidized media in MBRs. In both of laboratory-scale aeration tanks with and without fluidized media, shear stress variations on membrane surface and water phase velocity variations were measured and MBR operation was conducted. For the evaluation of the effective shear stress working on membrane surface to mitigate membrane surface, simulation of trans-membrane pressure increase was conducted. It was shown that the time-averaged absolute value of shear stress was smaller in the reactor with fluidized media than without fluidized media. However, due to strong turbulence in the reactor with fluidized media caused by interaction between water-phase and media and also due to the direct interaction between membrane surface and fluidized media, standard deviation of shear stress on membrane surface was larger in the reactor with fluidized media than without media. Histograms of shear stress variation data were fitted well to normal distribution curves and mean plus three times of standard deviation was defined to be a maximum shear stress value. By applying the defined maximum shear stress to a membrane fouling model, trans-membrane pressure curve in the MBR experiment was simulated well by the fouling model indicting that the maximum shear stress, not time-averaged shear stress, can be regarded as an effective shear stress to prevent membrane fouling in submerged flat-sheet MBRs.
