Hydraulic Reliability of Urban Water Distribution Systems

Abstract

Conventional planning and design approaches for urban water distribution systems consist of trial and error procedures to select piping network configurations, pipe sizes, storage capacities and elevations, pumping facility capacities, and treatment facility capabilities. The overall planning and design process attempts to find a low cost solution; however, there is usually no attempt to insure that the combination of components selected is the minimum cost solution nor is the reliability or availability of the system evaluated. This paper presents a concept for evaluating the reliability of urban water distribution systems using extended period hydraulic simulation. Refs.