Designing Coalescing Oil/Water Separators for Use at Army Washracks

摘要

The U.S. Army has thousands of oil/water separators to treat wastewater from tactical vehicle washracks at active Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard facilities. The vast majority of these separators are used as pretreatment prior to discharge of waste wash water into a sanitary or industrial sewer. Existing Army separators are typically below ground, cast-in- place concrete, simple gravity-type separators. Simple gravity separators consist of a chamber or chambers where the velocity of wastewater slows enough to allow free oil to rise to the surface. Cast-in-place concrete separators, however, are seldom con structed anymore, and designers now specifY/install off- the-shelf oil/water separators. Most off-the-shelf separators being installed currently are coalescing-type gravity separators. Facility designers choose coalescing separators because they are smaller, less expensive, and require less site work than the equivalent simple gravity separators. Many manufacturers now offer aboveground separators that are significantly less expensive to install.