An investigation on the performance of different reliability criteria for design of water distribution networks

Abstract

ABSTRACT Due to the high construction costs of a water distribution network, the least cost design with the most reliability is of great importance. In this paper, a survey was conducted on the performance of different reliability metrics including nodal pressure (PIP), pipe velocity (PIV), pressure difference (ΔH), combined index of pipe velocity and nodal pressure (PI) as well as the network resilience index (NRI), minimum surplus head (MSH) and entropy reliability index (ERI) using NSGA-II optimization algorithm and EPANET hydraulic solver. Reliability metrics were tested on three benchmark water distribution networks: Hanoi, Pescara and Modena and the results were analyzed in three scenarios of 5%, 10%, and 20% pipe failure. Experimental results showed that NRI generally outperforms other metrics and the PIP index is in the second score. These metrics increase the average of network pressure and thus provide higher reliability in the situation of unexpected events like pipe breaks.