Environmental Engineering Approach to Septic Tank Design for Domestic Sewage Management: A Case Study
1,Ogbozige, F.J..
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Nigeria
DOI: 10.36108/laujoces/5202.41.0110
Abstract
Septic tank is the most commonly used treatment facility for treating domestic sewage in developing countries. However, it has been noted that most of them did not operate efficiently in treating the sewage due to many factors including wrong sizing caused by poor or no design. Hence, this article applied environmental engineering principles and standards to determine the capacity and dimensions of a septic tank that could efficiently treat domestic wastewater using a newly built apartment as a case study. The septic tank which was designed for ten users had two chambers with a total capacity of 2.82 m3 at a desludging frequency of 3 years with an overall length, width and depth of 1.94 m, 0.97 m and 1.5 m respectively, in addition to a freeboard of 0.3 m, making a total depth of 1.8 m. Necessary factors of safety were considered and dimensions of all appurtenance such as manholes, vent pipe, baffle wall as well as inlet and outlet pipes were all designed in accordance with public health and environmental engineering standards. In addition, the engineering drawings (orthographic and isometric views) of the designed facility were all provided to ease construction. Hence necessary recommendations were made..
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Keywords: Baffle, Design, Drawings, Sewage, Sludge.