A Directly Disjoint Algorithm for Pipeline Network s - t Reliability Evaluation

Abstract

The layout of city pipelines is usually called a pipe network. In order to evaluate the seismic resistance of a pipe network, the source to terminal (s-t) reliability algorithm is mostly used. The exact reliability computation method of s-t problem is extremely time-consuming. It is, as an algorithmic problem, classed in the NP hard family. For a large pipe network, approximate computation methods are generally attractive. One feasible approximation approach is to use bounds, and another is to use simulation. This paper presents a directly disjoint algorithm using bounds for seismic reliability evaluation of pipe networks. Based on the principle of breadth-first search and minimal-distance-first search, the proposed algorithm could obtain exact solution of simple networks and approximation of large networks with real-time accumulation of disjoint minimal paths and cuts. Compared with the Modified Dotson algorithm, this algorithm is faster in solving the connective reliability of pipeline network with low element operation probability. Compared with the Minimal Cut-Based Recursive Decomposition algorithm, a more optimum disjoint set can be solved by this algorithm. At the end of this paper, the proposed algorithm was used to estimate the seismic reliability of a water supply network.