hydrograv GmbH

hydrograv GmbH, founded in 2004 as a spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Technical University of Dresden, applies computational fluid dynamics to optimize hydraulic performance across water and wastewater treatment facilities. Headquartered in Dresden with an office in Nuremberg, the interdisciplinary team of over 20 engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists has spent two decades building digital twins of treatment plants ranging from individual unit processes to entire facility simulations. Their simulation practice covers secondary clarifiers, activated sludge tanks, anaerobic digesters, grit chambers, ozone and activated carbon reactors, pumping stations, and pipeline networks — all validated through on-site measurements of sludge concentration and flow velocity. The company's flagship hardware product, hydrograv Adapt, is a height-variable inlet structure for secondary clarifiers that dynamically adjusts inlet geometry to match changing hydraulic loads. With over 30 reference installations across plants serving 5,800 to 1.5 million population equivalent, Adapt has demonstrated total phosphorus effluent concentrations below 0.2 mg/L annual average without filtration, enabling plants like Erlangen to deactivate sand filters entirely. The next-generation ADAPT Next targets even stricter phosphorus limits. On the software side, proload.cfd delivers 2D and 3D multiphase simulation of secondary settling tanks, proload.sms provides real-time online CFD-based sludge management, and proload.data analyzes operating parameters to determine representative loading scenarios. In 2017, hydrograv received the Saxonian Environmental Award for environmentally friendly technologies.