EVAPORATION POND: MODEL BASIS

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Source: INEEL, 'Evaporation Pond Sizing with Water Balance and Make-up Water
Calculations.' (2002) US Department of Energy

Considerations/Assumptions:

- Additional inflows (stormwater, dumping)

- Time-averaged with scenarios for wetter/dryer periods -> weather data
"No more evaporative surface area than necessary for long-term average, but
enough to account for short-term fluctuations
- Keep sediments submerged to prevent release of dust to atmosphere - additional
makeup water may be needed to do so
- Two-pond system for availability during maintenance changeout
- Evaporative surface area and rain catchment can be a function of pond geometry ->
"dead' and "active" storage due to graded bottom
- Sensitivity analysis
- Minimum freeboard distance (wind-induced change in height)
- Sediment build-up requires periodic cleaning
- Liner leakage is an output in the water balance - by neglecting this, more
sediment remains in the evaporation pond
- Neglect sublimation as an output (no snow in Ghana)

Requirements:

- Precipitation data
- Pan evaporation data (or equivalent) with appropriate geographic corrections
- Pond geometry to determine dead and active storage space
- Time basis: annual, monthly?
- Stormwater data (25-year, 24-hour storm event)
- CW4E design specs
- Engineering Toolbox
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/evaporation-water-surface-d_690.html
- Salinity correction because evaporation rate is lowered by the presence of salts
in solution
Nonlinear function of time: salinity increases as water evaporates, RO
recovery changes etc.
Function of water height: inflow from top, sediment settling]
"A practical maximum concentration for mixed salt salinity suggested by
the literature is ~17%, which would lower vapor pressure of water by ~10%, which
corresponds to ~10% decline in
evaporation rate. So use a salinity correction coefficient of 0.9.
Further assume that certain other contaminants will not lower evaporation rate any
further."

Calculation:

- Volume balance over 10-year model period

dV/dt = dV_backwash/dt + dV_concentrate/dt + dV_directPrecipitation/dt +
dV_additionalInflow/dt - dV_evaporation/dt

- 3-step process
1. Determine optimal pond surface area using time-averaged inputs,
iteratively
Guess a surface area. Iterate to find a surface area such that a zero
water balance results for active storage at one point in the year with December's
accumulation carried over to January.

2. Select pond depth to provide enough storage for excess volume in wetter
periods/scenarios, which will be equalized in the long run
Contingency rationale: pond will need to provide enough storage to
handle up to 3 years in a row of the worst-case precipitation and RO concentrate
production
**Model will need to be adjusted to account for carryover from year 1
to 2 and from year 2 to 3.

3. Determine how much make-up water is needed to ensure sediments remain

submerged.
Add dV_makeupWater/dt as input