Fictitious Component Free-Pressure Deficient Network Algorithm for Water Distribution Network with Variable Minimum and Required Pressure-Heads

The pressure-driven analysis is essential for modelling the pressure deficient condition of water distribution networks. Owing to the complexity, the development of pressure-driven analysis algorithms remains a grey area over the past few decades. As a milestone, EPANET 2.0 got upgraded to EPANET 2.2 with the inclusion of pressure-driven analysis. However, EPANET 2.2 has a shortcoming of using only a single value for the parameters, minimum pressure-head and required pressure-head of the demand nodes. Ironically, when a water distribution network serves for a wide area or during a fire-fighting period, the demand nodes have variable values for each of these parameters. To address this, a new method named Fictitious Component Free - Pressure Deficient Network Algorithm (FCF-PDNA) is proposed in this paper. The FCF-PDNA does not require any additional fictitious components. It can be used for both steady-state and extended period simulations. The proposed method is applied to water distribution networks of different sizes and types and confirmed that the FCF-PDNA could deal with variable values of minimum and required pressure-head. The suitability of this method for different scenarios that will lead to pressure deficient conditions is also analysed and verified. Moreover, the computational time taken by the FCF-PDNA and the EPANET 2.2 pressure-driven analysis is similar.

Automated summary

The paper introduces a new method called Fictitious Component Free - Pressure Deficient Network Algorithm (FCF-PDNA) for analyzing pressure deficient conditions in water distribution networks. This method is able to handle variable parameter values of demand nodes and is suitable for different scenarios, with a computational time similar to that of EPANET 2.2 pressure-driven analysis.