Winthrop, MA
MWRA Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, Egg-Shaped Digesters
Scope/Solutions
The Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is owned and operated by Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, removes pollutants from wastewater that originates in homes and businesses in the greater Boston area. Buchart-Horn, the Electric Boat Division (EBDiv) of General Dynamics, and Perini retained SGH to develop the seismic design for egg-shaped digester tanks and their supporting concrete structures.
SGH helped develop the seismic design for the eight 3-MG egg-shaped digesters and two 3-MG gas storage tanks. Highlights of our analyses include the following:
- Evaluated the structures of the digesters and storage tanks
- Designed the reinforced concrete ring walls that support the digesters and gas storage steel tanks, which included an innovative concept for the anchorage of the steel tank base plate to the ring wall used to transmit the large overturning moment.
- Performed finite element analyses that included fluid-structure interaction for horizontal and vertical ground motion
- Determined stresses in the tank wall from the impulsive components
- Computed the convective components of liquid accelerating within the steel shell
Project Summary
Solutions
New Construction
Services
Structures | Advanced Analysis
Markets
Infrastructure & Transportation
Client(s)
Buchart-Horn | General Dynamics
Specialized Capabilities
Seismic Engineering | Computational Mechanics
Key team members

Additional Projects
Northeast
TLC Garage and Inspection Facility
The City of New York’s Department of Design and Construction and Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) needed to expand and reconfigure their facility along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. SGH consulted on the curtain wall design.
Northeast
Auburn Street Bridge, Mystic Valley Parkway
As part of an on-call engineering services contract with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, SGH evaluated potential scour effects and designed countermeasures to protect the bridge foundation during extreme floods.