FIELD STUDIES WITH RADIAL FILTER FOR USE IN ARMY

Abstract

Engineer troops also called 'Sappers' are responsible for water supply in ,field during operations and military exercises.. To carryout this task effectively 'Sappers' are expected to plan, evaluate, standarize necessary equipment and facilities to suit local conditions. The current practice of water—treatment in Army of mere settling and disinfection before distribution to troops is inadequate and water thus supplied is not always likely to be satisfactory for human consumption. Tatwawadi (30) conducted laboratory studies on portable 'Vertical radial filter' model and showed that this could be used to supply drinking and cooking demands of a 'Brigade group' troops. In this study 'Vertical radial filter' model has been used in conjuction with existing Army equipments and an integrated water purification system has been proposed to meet drinking water requirements of 'Brigade—group' troops. The composite model was tested for a number of typical sources of water normally encountered in the field. Experiments involved first raw water quality analysis and then headloss development, turbidity and bacterial removal, back wash requirements and attached turbidity in the model. iv Sources had turbidity range varying from 4.5-64 JTU and MRN-count 4600-9000/ml. The experiments have shown that for an influent turbidity of 64 JTU, a 36 hours run produced average 0.5 JTU effluent and headloss was 27.0 cms. Bacterial removal was found to be excellent and it was possible to produce pathogen free water with 0.2 mg/1 free residual chlorine dose. Based on the above experiments a procedure for treatment of 40,000 litre of water through this composite model has been advanced. The model incorporates only minor addition in existing Army equipments and has therefore a great potential for adoption in Army. The results of this study leads to believe that with slight alteration in size this unit can be tailored to supply entire 1.4 lakh litre of water requirement of'Brigade-group' and can go long way not only in solving problems of water supply in field but for small rural and urban communities also.