Abstract—Riqqa plant, the second largest wastewater
treatment plant in Kuwait, has lately shown signs of working
under unstable conditions. The Kuwait Institute for Scientific
Research has conducted a study to evaluate the plant
performance and to pin-point the probable causes of the
problem. To achieve these objectives, the Riqqa activated
sludge system was modelled using activated sludge model No. 1
(ASM1) in SIMBA simulation package. It was the first time to
use ASM1 to model a full-scale activated sludge system in
Kuwait. This paper presents the calibration of ASM1 to carbon
and nitrogen removals of the Riqqa activated sludge system,
using long-term routinely measured wastewater quality
parameters. Repirometery analysis was used to help in chemical
oxygen demand (COD) fractionation and for providing initial
guess values for the calibrated parameters. Validation results
showed reasonable agreement between the measured and
simulated COD, NH4-N and NO3-N over long-term dynamic
simulation. The developed model was then used to evaluate and
diagnose the system performance. The values of ASM1
parameters obtained will be useful in modelling other activated
sludge systems in the country.
Index Terms—Activated sludge, performance simulation,
modeling, calibration.
A. Abusam is with Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, P. O. Box
24885, Safat 13109, Kuwait (e-mail: aabusam@kisr.edu.kw).
[PDF]
Cite: Abdallah Abusam, "Calibration of ASM1 for Carbon and Nitrogen Removals
of Riqqa Activated Sludge System, Kuwait," International Journal of Modeling and Optimization vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 461-464, 2014.
