Hi Steve:
I am sorry, I graduated from Castle High School in Kaneohe in 1971(oops, my age is showing). My parents' house was on top of a hill on Lilipuna road, overlooking the valley and perhaps part of Kaneohe Bay. I left the area for "mainland" right after my graduation and can not remember much.
I plan to use microscreen in my next pond, but have been thinking about "vortex settlement for a while".
I have to think about how to explain in terms of forces pushing the particles towards the center, but it is fairly straight forward if you looked at it from the energy point of view.
I did not mean to suggest that we should roughen the wall's surface to the point of trapping particles. I think the data presented by "Peter Menear" was very convincing. He could improve the effectiveness of the "vortex chamber" by placing sheets of inert materials with vertical ridges in the "vortex". I will have to dig around my notes, "Peter Menear" posted the data on NI-board a few years back.
I have an idea that might work. How about putting in a vertical sheet of plastic screen material, spiralling towards the center of the vortex. Water enters the vortex at the outer edge of the spiral, then exits the vortex at the center of the spiral. This should improve the effectiveness of settlement without trapping particles on the walls.
By the way, thank you for the discussion. This is very refreshing.
