Introducing Designer for rehabilitation of water supply systems

Cost-effective design and rehabilitation of water supply and distribution systems are important issues for water engineers and utilities.

Generally constitute largest expenditure for water utilities—more than 80 percent of capital costs, in some cases.

Aging water distribution systems gradually deteriorate and become increasingly vulnerable to structural failures—they experience excessive leaks, drops in carrying capacity, poor water quality, and service disruptions.

Rehabilitation, replacement, and expansion of water distribution networks can be expensive and possibly go over budget.

Hydraulic Network Simulation Models:

Many water utilities now use hydraulic network simulation models to plan improvements and design better systems.

Improvements normally involve adding new pipes, pumps, and storage facilities, as well as paralleling, replacing, repairing, cleaning, or lining existing pipes.

Current practice involves tedious trial-and-error evaluation procedure that seldom leads to most effective solutions.

InfoWater Pro Designer optimizes network based on genetic algorithms, to help identify best combination of improvements that meet target water system performance criteria and budget.

Designer Set Up:

• Can be set up as a Steady State, Fire Flow, or Extended Period Simulation.
• For input data, can create groups and actions for pipes, pumps, and tanks, as well as constraints for junctions and pipes.
• For Steady State and Fire Flow simulations, can also set operating conditions.
• In all cases, can set simulation options, such as time settings and termination criteria.

Designer Results:

Once Designer simulation is run, can view multiple reports, including a summary report with associated design and penalty costs.

Based on details of solutions provided, can make changes and re-run simulation.

If satisfied with a solution, can export results to model.

Considerations:

Designer algorithm is only as smart as inputs given. Create logical groups of similar inputs, such as pipes. Bad pipe groups or poor constraints can lead to bad solutions.

Include good penalty costs to help avoid unwanted solutions. If solutions include penalty costs, likely need to increase penalty multipliers and re-run simulation.

Compare outputs, to make sure solution satisfies all conditions—Steady State, EPS, and Fireflow. Do not create solutions that work under one operating condition, but not another. Similarities between solutions are often good recommendations to consider.

Good Designer solutions should make sense and be reasonable. Use engineering judgment to identify any potential problems.