| This is all being made more complicated than it needs to be--
a settlement chamber is just that- it settles out heavy material ( heavier than the weight of water) by slowing the water or by creating counter eddies to drop the solids out of solution. So you can have a very large chamber to slow water rapidly entering from the drain OR physical barriers like baffles to slow the water physically ( like an oar in the water) so that counter currents cause solids to fall out of circulation.
a screen or brushes , on the other hand , act as barriers to block solids being carried in water currents. This strictly a physical barrier idea.These things strain or trap waste from contining on into the next chamber/section.
a vortex, a true vortex, is supposed to be a circular chamber that sets up a gentle swirling and allows solids to be pulled down the OUTSIDE walls of the vortex. This is a classic setting up of a boundry layer along the wall where water near the walls does not move at the same speed as the the rest of the water due the friction of the walls. The solids slow at that wall area and 'fall' out of solution. The trouble is, most vortexes are not size correctly for the water flow and therefore spin too quickly. This instead, results in a movement of the solids into the center of the current where the material tends to settle out. This is the least efficient because the exit pipe is either in the center or at the opposite side of the entry port and will once again pull waste back into solution. The exit pipe needs to be set when you actually know which method you wise to incorporate.
The ideal is to have a properly sized vortex operating on true vortex principles and the pick up in the center.
JR |