Trojan Technologies Inc. is a Canadian based, high-technology company specializing in ultraviolet (UV) light applications for the disinfection of drinking water. It is the world's leading supplier of ultraviolet disinfection systems for municipal wastewater applications, with over 2000 municipal installations in 25 countries.

A key component to Trojan's continuous development of leading-edge products has been the establishment of a CFD capability within their R&D department.

Designing a UV disinfection system involves balancing a variety of important design drivers. For instance, bacteria and viruses in the water must come in close enough proximity to a UV lamp for a long enough period of time to dimerize their DNA. Dimerizing DNA essentially glues the DNA molecules together, preventing the organisms from reproducing themselves. Adequate disinfection must occur with minimal energy consumption. Systems need to be configured to minimize head losses and prevent short circuiting of bacteria. FLUENT software helps Trojan researchers address these issues and design more cost-effective disinfection systems with improved performance and reliability.

Fluid flow simulations provide useful information on a variety of issues, such as where deposits are likely to form, where erosion will occur and the probability of bacteria short-circuiting the reactor.

Particle trajectories describe how bacteria move within the system. By including the paths of thousands of bacteria, the UV dosage received by individual bacteria can be determined, revealing the percentage of particles receiving either too much UV (wasted energy) or too little UV (the bacteria may not be disinfected).

Trojan researchers have been using FLUENT software along with experimental validation to test a wide range of reactor concepts. Once a concept is modeled with favorable results, a prototype reactor Fluid flow is built for testing and confirmation. This combination of modeling, validation, and prototype building is not only less expensive than constructing prototype reactors alone but also much faster. Taking advantage of GAMBIT's state-of-the-art preprocessing tools and FLUENT's robust, fully unstructured flow solver and parallel computing capabilities, Trojan tests numerous reactor concepts simultaneously, and at less cost than building one pilot system. Trojan also uses CFD successfully in performance optimization and trouble-shooting of existing installations.

Trojan's partnership with Fluent goes beyond software licensing. Fluent consultants are currently working with Trojan engineers to develop advanced modeling tools for UV disinfection equipment.

FluentNEWS