MetPro

Thickener Sizing & Settling Calculator

Stokes-law settling velocity with automatic regime detection, plus thickener area, diameter and water balance from unit area and feed rate.

Methodology & references

The settling tab computes particle terminal velocity with automatic regime detection: Stokes’ law for Re < 1, the Schiller-Naumann drag correlation iterated to convergence in the intermediate regime, and Newton’s law (Cd ≈ 0.44) above Re = 1000.

The thickener tab sizes the unit from a unit area (m²·d/t) determined in settling test work: required area A = F·24·UA for a dry solids feed F in t/h, plus diameter, overflow/underflow water balance and solids loading. The unit-area methods behind that input are the classical ones: Coe & Clevenger (1916) take the limiting unit area across a series of batch settling tests at different concentrations; Talmage & Fitch (1955) extract it from a single settling curve by tangent construction at the compression point. Both methods are implemented and unit-tested in MetPro’s calculation engine.

References

• Coe, H.S. & Clevenger, G.H. (1916). Methods for determining the capacities of slime settling tanks. Trans. AIME 55, 356–385.
• Talmage, W.P. & Fitch, E.B. (1955). Determining thickener unit areas. Ind. Eng. Chem. 47(1), 38–41.
• Wills, B.A. & Finch, J.A. (2016). Wills' Mineral Processing Technology, 8th ed., Ch. 15 (Dewatering).

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