DAF Tank Redesign,
SJSC Wastewater
Facility

The assignment for my engineering course was to design a one-to-one replacement for a dissolved air flotation (DAF) tank at the San Jose-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility. The replacement had to drop into the existing footprint and connect to the same influent, effluent, air, and skimmer interfaces the current tank uses, so the plant could swap units without reworking the surrounding infrastructure.

Because it was a direct replacement rather than an open-ended design, we had to follow the real plant's dimensions, and the deliverable had to be a complete package to industry documentation standards. The design and final package were judged by a former engineer of the facility.

I started from the facility's existing plans, pulling the tank dimensions and the locations of every plant interface so the replacement would line up without moving anything around it. From there I modeled the tank in SolidWorks and laid the civil and electrical changes into the site plans in AutoCAD.

The documentation side was as much of the project as the geometry. I helped write the addenda, contracts, and change orders to match the format a real facility project would use.

I delivered the complete package: a SolidWorks model of the replacement tank, updated civil and electrical site plans, and the full set of contract documentation, all built to the existing plant's dimensions and interfaces.

The design and package were reviewed by a former engineer of the San Jose-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility. The main takeaway for me was how much of real engineering work lives in the documentation, matching an existing system and communicating the change clearly, not just the part itself.