Dear Timothy Kennedy, 

The following text describes a design of bench scale slow sand filtration columns:

Final Design:

The preliminary design of the rouging filters and the SSF system can be seen below in Figure 4 with the final design of the system shown in Figure 5. Figure 6 shows the roughing filters and the SSF can be seen in Figure 7. The flow control valves used to control the filtration rate through each filter can also be seen in Figure 7. The columns for the SSF and the roughing filters were composed of clear extruded acrylic. The roughing filter cylinders had an overall height of three feet with 2.5 feet of the column containing gravel. The SSF cylinder was composed of two-three foot sections of extruded acrylic that were held in place by a rubber pipe coupling. Both the roughing filters and the SSF had an acrylic base attached to the bottom of the columns with JB WaterWeld. The hose connecting the filters together was 3/8” I.D clear plastic.

To view the figures, please use the following link:

https://www.ipfw.edu/dotAsset/fb036bff-5367-4518-b309-53f77ad829cd.pdf

Hoping this will be helpful,

Rafik