ANALYSIS OF WATER DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS

Abstract

Various methods for analyzing water distribution networks are available in the literature. Some of these methods are (1) Newton Rhapson method (2) Linear Theory method. Also, in none of these methods, the effect of including Darcy- Weisbach friction factor has been considered. All the methods have been tested using Hazen- Williams coefficient, which is not a rational parameter to account for frictional effects. Thus, in the present study, the performance evaluation of various methods has been done using Hazen-Williams as well as Darcy-Weisbach friction factor. It is foimd that the use of the latter generally leads to larger number of iterations. The number of iterations appear to be dependent on the size of the network. Among various methods, the Linear Theory method is found convergent in all the cases analyzed in the study and is thus recommended for pipe network analysis.