Analysis of water distribution network under pressure-deficient conditions through emitter setting

Pressure-driven analysis (PDA) of water distribution networks necessitates an assessment of the supplying capacity of a network within the minimum and required pressure ranges. Pressure-deficient conditions happen due to the uncertainty of nodal demands, failure of electromechanical components, diversion of water, aging of pipes, permanent increase in the demand at certain supply nodes, fire demand, etc. As the demand-driven analysis (DDA) solves the governing equations without any bound on pressure head, it fails to replicate the real scenario, particularly when the network experiences pressure-deficient situations. Numerous researchers formulated different head–discharge relations and used them iteratively with demand-driven software, while some other approaches solve them by incorporating this relation within the analysis algorithms. Several attempts have been made by adding fictitious network elements like reservoirs, check valves (CVs), flow control valves (FCVs), emitters, dummy nodes and pipes of negligible length (i.e., negligible pressure loss) to assess the supplying capability of a network under pressure-deficient conditions using demand-driven simulation software. This paper illustrates a simple way of assessing the supplying capacity of demand nodes (DNs) under pressure-deficient conditions by assigning the respective emitter coefficient only for those nodes facing a pressure-deficit condition. The proposed method is tested with three benchmark networks, and it is able to simulate the network without addition of any fictitious network elements or changing the source code of the software like EPANET. Though the proposed approach is an iterative one, the computational burden of adding artificial elements in the other methods is avoided and is hence useful for analyzing large networks.