Land-Based
High Flow Test Facility
The
GSI's land-based testing of treatment systems takes place at
a purpose-built test facility located in Superior, Wisconsin,
during the late-spring, summer and early fall seasons. Key features
of the test facility include:
o Four (4) x 200 m3 matched retention tanks for experimental water;
o Matched control and treatment intake flows up to 341 m3/hour;
o Highly automated flow and pressure control, monitoring and data logging;
o A freshwater estuary with plentiful aquatic life as a water intake source;
o Capacity to amend intake water to intensify challenge conditions;
o Automated and validated facility sanitation between trials;
o High quality in-line or in-tank sampling and/or spiking;
o On-site laboratory space for live analysis;
o Capacity to test treatment systems that operate on intake, discharge, in-tank, or combinations thereof;
o Whole effluent toxicity (WET) testing; and
o Easy plug-in connections for treatment systems.
GSI Land-Based
Facility in Superior, Wisconsin.
Bench-Scale
Test Facilities
Laboratory
space within the University
of Wisconsin-Superior and University
of Minnesota-Duluth is utilized to meet GSI
bench-scale test objectives, as well as for non-time sensitive
analysis of samples from the land-based and shipboard scale tests.
A
mobile field laboratory and stationary structure provide on-site
bench-scale facilities to support land-based atests. The laboratory,
pictured below, is located at the land-based test site during
the testing season and can be moved to other sites in the Great
Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System to support GSI shipboard tests
as needed. Both the mobile laboratory and stationary structure
are climate-controlled, and have enough desk and counter space
to allow for simultaneous microscopic and analytical analysis
of zooplankton, phytoplankton and bacteria samples.
GSI
Mobile Laboratory.
Shipboard-Scale
Test Facilities
Shipboard
in-situ testing of treatment equipment will be undertaken to "ship-truth"
technology performance exhibited at the land-based scale. The
platforms available to the GSI comprise ships in two distinct
trades: Canadian Lakers and transoceanic vessels. A Canadian Laker,
plying routine voyages between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the
Western Great Lakes, can be used to determine if the treatment
technologies perform as anticipated in actual shipboard conditions
in both fresh and saltwater. Ocean-going vessels in saltwater
trade can be used for tests of treatments at the most advanced
stages of development to determine if the systems perform as anticipated
in actual shipboard conditions in locations globally.
© Great Ships Initiative 2010.
