Most of us don’t need to worry about calibrating our hydraulic models, nor do most of us even know what this means. As citizens, we just assume the maze of utilities beneath us is working properly and flowing as it should. However, that’s one of our jobs here at Johnson Engineering: to work closely with utility providers to analyze these systems and provide guidance for future upgrades. This is exactly how we are helping the City of Fort Myers.

In an effort to be proactive, the City of Fort Myers Public Works department hired Johnson Engineering’s utilities team to evaluate and provide recommendations for upgrades on one of its critical wastewater pumping stations servicing the City’s riverfront area. Instead of performing a typical single pump down test to establish flow and pressure at one moment in time, our utilities engineers recorded flow and pressure for a period of one week. To do this, pressure transducers were installed on the discharge piping to record pressure on the force main system, and low pressure recording transducers were installed in the wet well to monitor water levels. The data allowed the team to establish an accurate system curve and provide for a higher level of confidence with model results.

With the accurate data, our team provided recommendations for improvements that will ultimately make the station operate more efficiently. Taking the guessing game out of the equation and obtaining true readings enabled us to select pumps that reduced the station’s total horsepower from 140hp to 80hp. This will result in reduced energy and maintenance costs.

For more information on how we can help calibrate your hydraulic model, contact Michael Dickey, P.E. at [email protected].