AWWA JAW34916

Packed-tower countercurrent air-stripping is widely used to remove volatile organic compounds from contaminated water. An air stripper is designed using a well-developed mathematical model of the process. However, the number of variables in the model exceeds the number of constraining equations by two, with the result that a number of alternative air-stripper designs are possible for a particular water treatment objective. To select one or several designs associated with minimum capital and operating costs, it is necessary to develop a large number of possible designs and to estimate the costs associated with each. The air-stripper design and costing (ASDC) program, a microcomputer-based public-domain program, automates the iterative design and cost calculations and thus enables rapid, preliminary evaluation of alternative air-stripper designs and associated costs. In this article, the design methodology and cost-estimation techniques incorporated in ASDC are described, and ASDC cost predictions are compared with costs reported for actual operating air strippers. Includes 31 references, tables, figures.