Project Details

[Return to Previous Page]

Adaptive Fire Hydrant Flusher

Company: WSSC Water

Major(s):
Primary: ME
Secondary: IE
Optional: MATSE

Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO

Intellectual Property: YES

The WSSC Water is a bi-county, public water/wastewater utility in Maryland that was established in 1918. For over 100 years, WSSC Water has served the communities of Prince George’s and Montgomery counties providing life-sustaining water and water resource recovery services to individuals, families and businesses. WSSC Water maintains and repairs approximately 60,000 fire hydrants and several dozen facilities to provide water services to its community. WSSC Water provides life saving fire water to approximately 2 million! Fire hydrants require regular maintenance to operate correctly. One critical activity that WSSC Water performs on fire hydrants is a flush and test process. This test requires flowing a large amount of water from the hydrant to and, at the same time, take critical measurement from the hydrant. An all-in-one tool to perform this process is needed. The PSU teams will design, develop, and prototype a devise that would meet all the above requirement and incorporate ergonomics aspects to make the process of using the devise the most comfortable for a field Technician. The devise will need to be durable, portable and as light weight as possible. The PSU team will have freedom to develop concepts of solutions starting at day 1 of the project. A site visit in the first few weeks will also highlight actual working conditions. The student team will need to quickly move through design and prototype so that they can work with a WSSC Water partner foundry to have several copies of the tool fabricated, assembled and ready for field use by the end of the semester.