Flood debris filtering structure for urban storm water treatment

Abstract

A simple and effective debris removal structure, the Drop Flow Debris Filter, is developed for urban storm water channels as a best management practice. This structure consists of two almost horizontal, slightly sloped plates, one placed above the other to form a debris basin. This system allows storm water to exit through the bottom of the debris basin, while floating and heavy debris are retained in the basin. A 1 : 12 scale physical model in a flume and a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model were used to investigate the debris-filtering performance of the system. To achieve enhanced debris filtering, a horizontal ramp was added to the preliminary model and both plates were curved. The curved plates model showed the most successful debris filtering performance by providing a compact short-circulation zone of water with reduced separation length and increased energy loss.

Keywords:

• Best management practices
• computational fluid dynamics
• debris removal
• numerical model
• particle motion
• physical model
• storm water