A team of engineering students from the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University finished second in a virtual student design competition held in April by the Water Environment Association of Texas (WEAT).
The team was tasked with creating a plan to improve the central wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Pflugerville, Texas. The six-member team began work in December 2019 to develop alternatives and final recommendations for expanding the WWTP in three separate phases and consider impacts to sludge production, hydraulics, operations, maintenance requirements and costs, and the probable construction costs for each stage.
Trishla Rajkumar Jain served as team leader for the competition and said the shift to online operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic was a challenge.
"We put in a lot of effort for this competition and were disheartened when we realized it would not be possible to present at the Texas Water Conference," she said. "Nonetheless, this competition gave us a great opportunity to learn."
The team researched and produced a 62-page presentation for the competition outlining their proposal of design alternatives to construct new facilities required for expanded capacity, rehabilitate existing facilities and convert from a chemical nutrient removal facility to a biological nutrient removal facility and upgrade the existing solids-handling facilities.
Team members include graduate students Heet Patel, Temidayo Sangoyomi, Kanal Kalpeshkumar Pathak, Mohneesh Nayal, Sanjivani Gondode and Jain.
The Association of Environmental Engineering Students at Texas A&M funded the team's participation in the competition. The team was partnered with professional mentors David Jackson from Freese & Nichols, Keval Satra from HR Green, Inc. and Jason Bybel from K Friese + Associates, and also by faculty member Dr. Shankar Chellam, the J. Walter "Deak" Porter '22 and James W. "Bud" Porter '51 Professor in the department.
WEAT is a member association of the Water Environment Federation. WEAT hosts the Texas Water Conference annually.