Penetration of warm heavy fuel oil waste in gypseous soil

Abstract

Abstract Gas power plants are the most common power plants, due to lower construction costs, shorter construction, and operating times than other power plants. However, the growing demands for more electrical power requires the construction or expansion of many power plants. The using of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) in the gas power plants needs a sequence of treating processes in a special treating unit. The HFO treating processes produce large quantities of the wastewater. Before treatment, the wastewater accumulated commonly in a large lagoon. During the high summer temperature, the stored wastewater in the lagoon, also, the concrete channels transferring it is warmed to a temperature of (60°C) as it exposed to the sun. In this research, an experimental device was manufactured to estimate the periods for percolation of contaminated waste material into different gypseous soil samples. In addition to the effect of wastewater on the characteristics of these soils, the results showed that as HFO waste temperature increases the percolation speed in the early stages of the percolation increases rapidly, and the degree of saturation of soil decreases. Also, increase in the HFO waste temperature decreases the settlement for soils of high and medium gypsum content, whereas it increases for soils with a low gypsum content.