Improvement of the Segment‐Valve Model for Solving the Valve Isolation Problem and Evaluating the Reliability of Water Distribution Networks

Abstract

AbstractThe segment‐valve graph model is widely used in the reliable evaluation of water distribution networks (WDNs). However, as an undirected graph, a segment‐valve graph does not express the upstream‐downstream relationships between segments, which hinders finding valves that need to be closed when a pipe bursts and the water outage region. Therefore, in this paper, directed edges applied to a segment‐valve graph are introduced to demonstrate the downstream segments of critical segments, and an improved segment‐valve graph with flow directions is proposed. The improved model is used to solve the valve isolation problem and evaluate the reliability of WDNs. The results show that the improved model can determine that the valve needs to be closed more quickly when a pipe burst occurs. In addition, we improve the traditional classical indicators based on the segment‐valve graph model. The new indicators based on the improved model can reflect the actual impact and the disposal difficulty of pipe network accidents more accurately and clearly. The proposed method can play a critical role in accident processing and reliability analysis of WDNs.