MIKE by DHI UK and Ireland Blog

WEST - Introduction to the modelling of wastewater treatment plants
Date: 17th - 18th June 2014
Location: Denmark
Language: English

This two-day course gives you an overview of the aspects to be addressed when working with modelling biological wastewater treatment plants. Training in the WEST wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) modelling simulator is included.

Click here to sign up for the training course!

Previews of MIKE by DHI Release 2014

Approximately once a year, we release a new version of our MIKE by DHI software - and this year is no exception. We would like to reveal herewith a preview of some of the new and exciting features to be released in December. We hope these new features will improve your experience with our software products, regarding usability, productivity as well as enhanced applications.

New possibilities of including moving objects in your animations

Ever wanted to add moving objects to your animations? This is possible with Release 2014.

Click here to view an example of the possibilities of this new feature.

In the September issue of this newsletter, we included a preview of new features in MIKE Animator Plus in Release 2014. In this issue, we would like to show you an example of the possibilities of this new development.

With MIKE Animator Plus, you can create visual animations to present you model results – and as something new, you will be able to include visualisation of solids. Through the inclusion of solids, you can improve your animations significantly by enhancing realism and recognition of locations, for example by including fixed elements like buildings and dams or moving elements like ships. Release 2014 will support the placement of solids inside the model domain and allow them to move, which means that a ship can be sailing as part of the animation.

MIKE HYDRO Basin: Global prioritisation of water users

MIKE HYDRO Basin is our new generation of integrated river basin analysis software for water resources planning and management.

MIKE HYDRO Basin was introduced with the current release 2012, containing a large number of features relevant for integrated river basin management applications. Developments continue for MIKE HYDRO Basin and the new release will introduce another very interesting new feature to modellers of river basin water allocation schemes and resources management; Global Prioritisation.

With this new feature, it is now possible to include a user defined prioritisation of water users within the basin model - regardless of their geographical location within the basin. Thus, it highly increases the applicability of MIKE HYDRO Basin for specific types of water resources management applications.

The global prioritisation of water users are defined through ‘Ranking’ number definitions, where water consumers are assigned an individual ranking number. The ranking numbers are used during simulation to prioritise consumers, in case of water shortage, in order to accommodate the water demands for these - taking into account that some users have a higher priority than others.

Mesh Generation: A new tool for creating flexible meshes from dfs2 files and other sources 

The combination of high flexibility of flexible meshes (FM) and impressive performance improvements, introduced in the latest releases of MIKE by DHI, make the use of FM versions of MIKE 21, MIKE 3 and MIKE FLOOD even more attractive. Improvements in recent releases include, amongst others, the introduction of shared memory based parallelisation, porting of simulation engines to LINUX and, in Release 2014, supporting Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) for MIKE 21 HD FM.

In order to assist those, who want to transfer existing models or bathymetries into the FM system, Release 2014 will contain a new tool, aimed to convert bathymetries in other formats into FM format.

The new Mesh Converter is included in the MIKE Zero Toolbox and supports DHI’s own format from the ‘classic’ modelling series, dfs2 as well as some external formats (ADCIRC, SMS, TUFLOW). The process is quick and easy and produces an equal bathymetry in FM format, which can then be modified using all the existing editing facilities of MIKE Zero’s Mesh Generator.

New features in FEFLOW 6.2

FEFLOW 6.2 offers a number of new features to enhance your groundwater modelling work.

• How long is the average underground travel time of water pumped at a well?
• What‘s the percentage of bank filtration at the supply wells?
• What‘s the age and remaining travel time of groundwater at a certain location?

New storage capture/release component in FEFLOW 6.2
Storage Capture/Release is a new component in the Rate Budget and Period Budget Panels for flow and transport in FEFLOW 6.2. With this new component, you can clearly separate storage change and solution error in transient models.

Increased performance with new MIKE 1D features in MIKE URBAN

• coupling to MIKE SHE
• options for Advection-Dispersion modelling
• result presentation in MIKE URBAN
• and many more…

MIKE 1D is parallelised and makes use of multicore PCs, which means that most users will experience higher modelling performance. Now is the time to start using MIKE 1D in your new modelling projects!

Strengthening wastewater modelling projects with new features in WEST 2014

• New Report Generator, which enables the user to automatically create reports containing graphs and data pertaining to a project in a variety of formats including: project information, plant layout, plots and tables.
• Integrated urban water system (IUWS) libraries, making WEST a powerful tool for identifying synergies and to globally optimise the wastewater system performance on a catchment scale.

Inclusion of plant wide model (PWM) in the WEST 2014 model library

We are also pleased to inform you that Release 2014 of WEST will include a plant wide model (PWM) for simulating nutrient removal activated sludge systems.

1. a variation of ASM2 for activated sludge nitrogen and phosphorus removal and aerobic or anoxic–aerobic digestion
2. a variation of the UCT anaerobic digestion model.

The main extensions to the original models are through their integration within a three phase mixed weak acid/base chemical and physical processes models of the inorganic carbon, ammonia, acetate, propionate and phosphate systems.

The plant wide model is developed jointly by our WEST Development Centres, the Universities of Cape Town (UCT) and kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

Previews of MIKE by DHI 2012 Release

As detailed in the February 2012 issue of our newsletter, we would like to present some previews of the upcoming MIKE by DHI software package 2012, which is scheduled to be released this September. The release will contain various new and exciting features, which we hope will improve your experience when using the software products, both with regard to usability, productivity, and enhanced applications.

FEFLOW 6.1: Selective Mesh Smoothing for Finite-Element Meshes

Now you can look forward to improved model quality and even faster modelling with the upcoming FEFLOW 6.1!

Smoothing a finite-element mesh can significantly improve the quality of a mesh that, in some cases, might be unsatisfactory after the generation process due to the presence of too many triangles with acute angles. Within groundwater modelling it is essential to keep hydraulic structures, e.g. well locations and other structures defined by the user at their original position. In FEFLOW 6.0, only a global mesh-smoothing option was available, which does not provide the means to exclude selected mesh nodes from shifting positions during the smoothing process.

With the upcoming version of FEFLOW 6.1, we have improved the smoothing functionality significantly: Smoothing can now be applied in selected areas of the finite-element mesh, only allowing maintaining the original positions of boundary conditions etc. as defined by the modeller.

WEST: How to convert plant layouts and experiments from older WEST versions?

The new WEST3 conversion tool allows for converting plant layouts and experiments from WEST 3.7.6 to WEST 2011. It will be available with the release 2012 and via download at the MIKE by DHI website.

Layouts that are based on the standard WEST model library are supported without further ado. During conversion, the user can choose whether to adopt the new WEST 2011 icons, or the old WEST 3.7.6 icons for the converted layout. The conversion tool does not require WEST 3.7.6 to be installed. However, it does require a valid WEST 2011 license.

Please do not hesitate to contact MIKE by DHI support if you have any questions related to WEST, or how to get the most out of the software.

MIKE URBAN: Storm Water Tools

With the release of MIKE URBAN 2012, the Storm Water Tools will be fully implemented into MIKE URBAN using either MOUSE or SWMM as simulation engine.

The MIKE URBAN Storm Water Tools focus on building the Storm Water model within a 1D framework. The tools supplement the standard MIKE URBAN installation by empowering the user with the ability to carry out:

• Lateral snapping of digitised rivers to the lowest point in DEM
• Cross section extractions from DEM
• Auto connections of overland network to sewer network
• Sequential labelling of nodes
• Catchment slope and length calculations

Highlights from The Network (March 2012)

The latest MIKE by DHI NetWork newsletter has been published, and a selected article is presented below: -

Application Examples

• Protecting clean drinking water from Lake Ontario, Canada:
  
  Most of the North American region and in particular Ontario’s 13 million residents are highly dependent on clean drinking water from one of the Great Lakes. Thus, as contamination of the lakes could have severe consequences for many communities, a study was initiated to investigate potential threats to the water quality of Lake Ontario.
  
  As a part of Ontario’s Source Water Protection program, a group called the Lake Ontario Collaborative was formed to study the potential threats to the drinking water. They have investigated potential impacts that activities on land, such as potential spills from surrounding waste water treatment plants, nuclear power plants, petroleum pipelines, and industrial facilities could have on the contamination of the water quality at the areas of intakes. For this purpose, they used an events-based approach, where potential spills were modelled by calculating the hydrodynamics as well as different aspects of the water quality. By using a full three dimensional illustration of water motion, including thermodynamics, it was possible to make accurate simulations and predictions of water currents in the lake and simulate the potential damage of a spill scenario.
  
  As a result, they were able to develop intake protection zones. The zones were used to help raise awareness of the potential environmental and health risks that potential spills could entail as well as guide the preparation of emergency response planning in the event of a spill in the future. Want to read more? Click here.

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WEST – Modelling Wastewater Treatment Plants

WEST is a powerful and user-friendly tool for dynamic modelling and simulation of wastewater treatment plants. The extensive state-of-the art model and process library of WEST allows users to model and evaluate almost any kind of modern wastewater treatment plant. WEST is specifically designed for engineers and professionals who want to simulate processes where physical, biological or chemical processes are interlinked to test different scenarios and to assess the treatment efficiency as well as operational cost.

Following the recent bankruptcy of MOSTforWATER, DHI has taken over selected assets from the estate - including all rights to WEST. DHI sees WEST as an important addition to the MIKE by DHI family – an addition which complements our product family in an important and growing market area.

DHI continues the on-going development of WEST as planned and will continue to offer WEST users high quality technical support and training similar to any other MIKE product.

The upcoming release of WEST is planned for October 2011 and will include significant new features and improvements, such as: -

• Faster and more user-friendly interactive layout editing
• New model editor providing: syntax-aware MSL model editing, Gujer matrix editing, and model library browser
• 5 new experiment types: uncertainty analysis, scenario analysis, local sensitivity analysis, global sensitivity analysis, and parameter estimation

After the release in October 2011 WEST releases will be synchronized with the general MIKE release schedule, implying that the following release is scheduled for end of Q2 2012.

As the leading provider of advanced software tools for the industry DHI is convinced that WEST provides a valuable expansion to the MIKE by DHI product line to the benefit of both MIKE and WEST users who now can look forward to further integration and broader service offerings from DHI.

DHI will provide customer support and training for WEST users through its current global network of offices and network.

For more information, please contact Morten Rungø by e-mail at mor@dhigroup.com, or visit http://www.mikebydhi.com/Products/Cities/WEST.aspx