Design of a SCADA System Simulation for Water Treatment Plant Automation in Maiduguri, Borno State

This project designs and simulates a supervisory control and data acquisition system for automating water treatment plant operations in Maiduguri, Borno State, North East Nigeria. Water treatment plants in Maiduguri, which serve a population swollen by internally displaced persons, are largely manually operated, leading to inconsistent treatment chemical dosing, energy inefficiency, and delayed response to equipment faults. The SCADA simulation models the key unit processes of a conventional water treatment plant, including raw water intake pumping, coagulation and flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and chlorination. The simulation is implemented in Wonderware InTouch SCADA software communicating with a Siemens S7-300 PLC model via OPC server. Programmable logic controller ladder logic controls pump start/stop sequences, chemical dosing pump speeds, valve positions, and alarm generation based on measured process variables including flow rates, turbidity, pH, and chlorine residual. Human-machine interface screens provide operators with a real-time process overview, trend graphs, and alarm management displays. Automated alarm handling is configured to escalate unacknowledged critical alarms to a supervisor's mobile phone via SMS gateway integration. The simulation was validated by running it through a series of process fault scenarios including raw water turbidity spikes, pump failures, and under-dosing conditions, confirming that the control logic responds correctly and generates appropriate operator alerts. Recommendations include deployment on actual PLC hardware interfaced with field instruments at the Maiduguri Water Board's treatment facility. Keywords: SCADA, water treatment, PLC automation, HMI, Maiduguri.