Research Article

Modeling Oxygen transfer of Multiple Plunging

Jets Aerators using Artificial Neural Networks
Pritam Reddu1, Arun Goel2

Abstract
Aeration is mainly used to remove the undesirable gases dissolved in wastewater. In this article, the
experimental data of aeration of the multiple plunging jets having varying jet velocity, jet parameters
and no. of openings (1, 2, 4 and 8) has been collected from the studies. On the basis of experiment data,
the values of oxygen- transfer coefficient (KLa) were calculated by using artificial neural network (ANN),
multi linear regression (MLR), and two empirical equations Tojo and Miyanami and Shukla and Goel. Three
standard statistical potential parameters such as correlation coefficient (R), determination coefficient (R2)
and root mean square error (RMSE) are utilized to compare the performance of modeling techniques and
two empirical equations Tojo and Miyanami and Shukla and Goel. The values of coefficient of correlation,
coefficient of determination and root mean square error values are 0.9897, 0.9795 and 0.00107 for ANN,
0.9585, 0.9404 and 0.00150 for MLR, 0.8424, 0.9178 and 0.0055 for equations of Tojo and Miyanami
and 0.9273, 0.9629 and 0.0109 for equations of Shukla and Goel. On the basis of comparison of the
performance of ANN and MLR modeling approaches with two empirical equations Tojo and Miyanami
and Shukla and Goel, it is concluded that the ANN gives the best results in comparison for calculating the
values of oxygen- transfer coefficient (KLa) for plunging jets.

Keywords: Artificial neural network, Multi linear regression, Oxygen transfer coefficient, Plunging jet
Introduction
Aeration procedure induces dissolved oxygen (D.O.) into the water which is essential for endurance of aqua-life in the
water bodies. It is also used to add oxygen for the oxidation of undesirable substances like oils, decomposing products
of algae present in waste water etc. The solid jet aerators are considered to be the most inexpensive and efficient
method as compared to other methods.3,4 The multiple plunging jets in oxygen transfer system present simple, green
and economical method that can be used in the aeration process.1,2,7,8 Due to these intrinsic advantages, there has been
a growing interest in oxygen-transfer by plunging water jets in aeration process.

A number of studies have been published on air-water oxygen transfer by single and multiple plunging jets.3,4 In these
studies some proposed empirical relationships between varieties of jets parameters for calculated oxygen-transfer
coefficient (KLa). Recently Deswal S, Verma DVS investigate the oxygen-transfer coefficient by multiple plunging jets
and the results show that the oxygen transfer coefficient (KLa) and oxygen-transfer efficiency (OTE) for multiple-
plunging-jets was higher than that used for a single jet at a given jet power.4 Soft computing techniques such as artificial
neural network (ANN), have been broadly use in civil and environmental engineering application and observed to be
performance well.3,4,6,8 The simplest relationships for single circular water jets plunging vertically as proposed by Tojo
K, Miyanami K are gives below as:7

M.Tech Student, 2Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, NIT, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India.
1

Correspondence: Pritam Reddu, Department of Civil Engineering, NIT, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India.

E-mail Id: pritam.redhu@gmail.com

Orcid Id: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9640-0591

How to cite this article: Reddu P, Goel A. Modeling Oxygen transfer of Multiple Plunging Jets Aerators using Artificial Neural
Networks. J Adv Res Const Urban Arch 2017; 2(3&4): 48-52.

ISSN: 2456-9925

© ADR Journals 2017. All Rights Reserved.

J. Adv. Res. Const. Urban Arch. 2017; 2(3&4)
KLa20=0.029 (P/V) 0.65 (1)
And other equation for rectangular with rounded edges as
proposed by Shukla and Goel (2016) are given below as...
KLa20=0.0047 n0.17 v0.06 p0.69 (2)
Where, KLa20 is oxygen transfer coefficient at 200C (1/sec.),
P/V is kinetic jet power per unit volume (KW/m3), n is no.
of openings, v is jet velocity (m/sec) and P is kinetic power
(KW).The present studies investigate the performance
of with the help of ANN and MLR modeling techniques
oxygen-transfer coefficient (KLa) by multiple plunging jets
having rectangular shape with rounded edge.
Methodology and Data Set
The data set was obtained from experiments conducted
Table 1.The characteristics of experimental data set
Input parameters Units
No. of Opening (n) No.
Jet Velocity(Vj) m/sec
Jet Perimeter(pj) m 0.04
Oxygen Transfer Coefficient (KLa) Per sec
ANN Modeling Technique
Artificial neural network (ANN) is an elastic numerical
structure, which is able to identify the complex nonlinear
associations between input data sets to output data sets
(Onen, 2014). It is inspired by the functioning of nervous
system and brain architecture. The networks comprise
a huge no. of simple processing element linked to each
other by weighted connections according to specified
architecture. It has one input, one or more hidden and one
output layers. Each layer consists of number of nodes and
the weighted connection between these layers represents
the link between nodes. Input layers having nodes equal to
number of input parameters, distributes the data presented
to the network and does not help in processing. This layer
follows one or more hidden layers which help in processing
Table 2.Optimal values of user-defined parameters of ANN
Learning rate Momentum
0.3 0.2
Multi Linear Regression (MLR)
MLR  is an arithmetical process use to calculate the
relationships between input and output variables.
Nonlinear relationships between the dependent variables
and the independent variables based on multivariate
power function were considered. MLR is widely used
for prediction and forecasting where its use has overlap with
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Reddu P et al.
with four types of plunging jet aerators having one, two,
four and eight openings of rectangular shape with rounded
edges by maintaining a constant jet length of 105 mm and
water level in the tank equal to 600 mm for the whole series
of experiments. Two modeling approaches, ANN and MLR
were applied on the experimentally observed data (Table
1) to predict the value of oxygen transfer coefficient. The
detailed description of the applied modeling approaches
are described in next section.
Data set consists of 20 observations were used and Obtained
from the laboratory experiments. Input data set consists
of no of openings (n), jets velocity (Vj), and jet perimeters
(Pj) whereas oxygen transfer coefficient was considered
as output. The characteristics of experimental data are
specified in Table 1.
Data set
min Max Mean st.dev.
1.00 8.00 3.75 2.75
3.05 14.8 9.49 4.41
0.11 9.50 0.03
0.01 0.02 0.01 0.006
of data. The output layer is final processing unit. Artificial
neural networks are computational methodologies that
perform complex analyses. The purpose of most favorable
number of hidden layers and hidden neurons is regularly
cumbersome, as no general methodology is accessible for
their determination. These networks have learnt from the
training data by adjust the link weights. A three layer feed
forward artificial neural network consists of three layers
known as input, hidden and output layers (weights lead
to a summation function).6 The sum of inputs and there
weights lead to a summation function. A huge no. of trials
has been carried out to find the optimal values of parameter
of ANN. The optimal parameters were preferred on the
base of statistical parameters, coefficient of correlation
(R), coefficient of determination (R2) and root mean square
value (RMSE).
Hidden layer neuron No. of iterations
4 500
the field of machine learning. The relationship between jet
velocity, jet perimeter, no. of openings and oxygen transfer
coefficient is given in Eq. (4). Multiple nonlinear function
of importance is as follows:
Y=Axb1Yb2……Zbn (3)
The output of the multi-linear regression provided the
values of A, x, y and z which form a development multi
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Reddu P et al. J. Adv. Res. Const. Urban Arch. 2017; 2(3&4)

non linear regression equation shown in below. with MLR. Table 3 provides the values of the coefficient of
correlation (R), coefficient of determination (R2) and root
KLa 0.007 n0.54 Vj0.90 pj0.77 (4) mean square value (RMSE) values provided by different
analytical approaches. Comparison of results suggests
Where, KLa20 is oxygen transfer coefficient at 200C (1/ improved performance by ANN in terms of R2, R, and RMSE
sec.), P/V is kinetic jet power per unit volume (KW/m3), n values used with this data set. A substantial improvement
is no. of openings, v is jet velocity (m/sec) and P is kinetic in predictive accuracy of ANN approach indicates that it can
power (KW). be effectively used in predicting oxygen transfer coefficient.
Figure 1 and 2 shows the agreement diagrams of actual and
Analysis of Results predicted oxygen-transfer coefficient of stagnant water in
aeration tank using MLR and ANN respectively. Predicted
To evaluate the value of MLR model and ANN model in values of oxygen transfer coefficient using ANN lie within
predicting the oxygen transfer coefficient. The correlation an error range of 10% suggest better accuracy of ANN in
coefficient of determinacy (R2), coefficient correlation (R) prediction, whereas the values predicted by MLR within
and root mean square error (RMSE) values obtained with error range of 15% depict inferior performance.
test data set was used to compare the performance of ANN
Table 3.Detail of performance evaluation parameters using ANN, MLR, Equation of Tojo and Miyanami and
Equation of Shukla and Goel testing data set
Modeling Approach R2 R RMSE
ANN 0.9795 0.9897 0.00107
MLR 0.9404 0.9585 0.00150
Eq. of Tojo and Miyanami7 0.9178 0.8424 0.0055
Eq. of Shukla and Goel (2016) 0.9629 0.9273 0.0109

Figure 1.Actual vs. Predicted values of oxygen transfer coefficient using MLR Model

Figure 2.Actual vs. Predicted values of oxygen transfer coefficient using ANN Model

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J. Adv. Res. Const. Urban Arch. 2017; 2(3&4) Reddu P et al.

Figure 3 show that the variation of experimental and
predicted overall oxygen transfer coefficient by multiple
plunging jets with the no. of data set. It is apparent from
Fig. 3 that oxygen transfer coefficient predicted by ANN
technique is in very good contact with actual experiment
values; whereas, that is not the case with MLR regression
approach as the predicted values by this technique are
deviating at few of the test data. Thus, suggesting a better
performance of ANN in comparison to MLR regression.

Figure 3.Variation in predicted values by Observed values, ANN and MLR in comparison to the actual
values of overall oxygen transfer coefficient by multiple plunging jets oxygenation system
As depicted from Fig. 4 ANN and MLR values are well within lower and higher values of oxygen transfer coefficient. The
the error band of 30%. The correlation proposed by Tojo predicted points of Shukla and Goel failed to estimate the
and Miyanami approximates the oxygen transfer coefficient oxygen transfer prediction of this type of plunging jets. The
of multiple jets to some extent and underperformed for overall performance of ANN is best in prediction of oxygen
the lower values of oxygen transfer coefficient. However transfer coefficient of multiple rounded rectangular jets
the predicted points by this eq. lie outside the 30% error followed by MLR.
band mostly at the

Figure 4.Comparison between actual and predicted values of oxygen transfer coefficient
Conclusion observed that ANN approach works well than MLR. It
can be successfully used in estimation of oxygen transfer
This article examines the performance of artificial coefficient of rectangular jets with rounded geometry
neural network (ANN) and multi linear regression (MLR) plunging into the water pool. The equations proposed
approaches in predicting the oxygen transfer coefficient by different researchers are compared with the current
of aerated water in aeration tank. From the comparison applied modeling approaches and ANN is concluded to
of performance evaluation parameters, it has been

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Reddu P et al.
be the most effective modeling technique in comparison
to the used models in approximation of the volumetric
oxygen transfer coefficient.
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