Layout Optimization of Sewer Network Using Minimum Cumulative Flow in the Sewer Network

Abstract

The optimal design of sewer network includes two subproblems: (1) finding the feasible sewer layouts and (2) optimal design of sewer layout components. The topic of sewer network optimization has been broadly studied since the concept was first proposed in the late-1960s. Most of the design practices have focused on sewer network component sizing with a fixed plan layout. The latter includes pipe diameters, slopes, and excavation depths, all of which is considerably influenced by the layout configuration. This works goal at introducing a method to solve the layout subproblem. A new approach to the selection of feasible sewer layouts has been developed, in which generation of all spanning tree algorithm is introduced to generate all possible sewer layouts from the base sewer network. After that, these sewer layouts are sorted in ascending order of total cumulative flow and a cost function is applied to determine the optimal sewer layout. The proposed method has been applied to solve two test examples at different scales, and the results have been discussed. The results clearly reveal the efficiency of the proposed method which can effectively solve the problem of optimal layout determination of a sewer network.