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Published on: October 7, 2025
Dispersion coefficients of sewers from tracer experiments
J Rieckermann1, M Neumann, C Ort
1Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Ueberlandstrasse 133, CH-8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland. joerg.rieckermann@eawag.ch
Abstract:
In this paper, 60 tracer experiments in 37 different sewer reaches have been analyzed for longitudinal dispersion under dry weather flow conditions. It was found that dispersion coefficients of sewers are two to three orders of magnitude smaller than those measured in rivers and do not differ much from system to system. Suitable equations were identified to predict reasonable dispersion coefficients in sewer reaches with uniform geometry and stable flow conditions. For engineering applications that require a high degree of accuracy the performance of tracer measurements is recommended.

