The objective of this study was to examine the transient response to hydraulic shocks in an inverse fluidized bed biofilm reactor(IFBBR) for the treatment of apartment sewage. The hydraulic shock experiments, when the system were reached at steady state with each HRT 12, 7, and 4hr, were conducted by changing twice HRT per day during 3days. The SCOD, SS, DO, and pH of the effluent stream were increased with hydraulic shock, but easily recovered to the steady state of pre-hydraulic shock condition. In spite of hydraulic shock, there were not much variation of biomass concentration, biofilm thickness, and biofilm dry density.

The objective of this study was to examine and compare to transient response to quantitative and hydraulic shocks which produce equal changes in mass rate of organic feed in aerobic fixed-film process. The general experimental approach was to operate the system at several growth rates under steady-state(pre-shock) conditions, then to apply step changes during day 3 in dilution rate(hydraulic shock), or feed concentration(quantitative shock) at the same organic mass loading rate. Performance was assessed in both the transient state and the new steady-state (post-shock). Shock load of different type did not produced equivalent disruptions of effluent quality for equal increases on mass loading rate. Based on effluent concentrations, a hydraulic and a quantitative shock at the same mass loading caused equal increase in total effluent COD, but the increase was primarily a result of suspended solids the hydraulic shock and COD in the quantitative shock, The time which effluent COD came to peak values were about 32∼48 hours at the low organic loads and 52∼72 hours at the high organic loads, respectively. A quantitative shock produced a much greater increase in effluent COD than did a hydraulic shock at the same mass loading. Mean and peak values of effluent concentration were increased in 2.8∼4.2 times at low organic loading rate, 5.2∼6.6 times at the high organic loading rate respectively.