Dynamic Model For A Water Distribution Network: Application To Leak Diagnosis And Quality Monitoring

This paper presents a model based on the rigid water column (RWC) theory to describe the flow and the decay of chlorine in water distribution networks (WDNs), which can be used for developing tools to diagnose leaks and estimate chlorine concentrations. The model includes the continuity equation for each node of the network such that i) the relation of the flow rates entering and leaving the nodes is explicit, and ii) the computation of pressures and flow rates can be simultaneously done. The chlorine decay in each node and in each pipeline section of the WDN is predicted from the computed flow rates by using the third order accurate Warming-Kutler-Lomax (WKL) method. At the end of this paper, it is shown that the chlorine decay rate is well predicted by using the WKL method according to a comparison with simulations results obtained by using the EPANET-MSX software. Furthermore, it is shown that several single leak-diagnosis scenarios can be successfully solved by using an improved sensitivity matrix method together with the proposed model. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.