Author: Azhar Uddin Mohammed

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13:

The condition of current water infrastructure in North America is alarming due to deterioration of old water mains indicating the incompetence of existing water distribution to cope with increasing demands. ASCE (2013) report card graded the drinking water networks a score of D, representing ?poor condition?. In contrast, the Canadian drinking water infrastructure scored better, indicating ?Good: adequate for now?. Despite this, 15.4% of the water distributions are graded ?fair? to ?very poor? with a replacement value of CAD 25.9 billion. Delaying the investment can result in degrading water service, increasing service disruptions, and increasing expenditures for emergency repairs. Taking into account the deterioration severity and investment gap, water utilities need an asset management tool that can effectively prioritize the rehabilitation works. This research is aiming at developing an integrated reliability assessment model that can identify the crucial water main segments and prioritize their renewal at all hierarchical levels of the network. In this regard, the proposed research framework encompasses modeling aspects of mechanical and hydraulic condition of a WDN. The first model analyzes the mechanical condition of a WDN at the component, segment and network levels. This model utilizes reliability theory for assessing component and segment reliabilities, whereas minimum cut set approach is pursued for assessing mechanical reliability of a network. To facilitate this tedious process, it has been coded in MATLAB R2013b programming environment along with the utilization of Wolfram Mathematica 10.2 and Microsoft Excel 2013. The second model analyzes the hydraulic performance of a WDN in terms of hydraulic reliability. It involves the hydraulic simulation of a WDN in normal and failure conditions, which aid in obtaining the required as well as actual pressure head at demand nodes. The model is then formulated with pressure conditions to evaluate the available demand at demand nodes which in contrast to the required demand aids in predicting the hydraulic reliability of the network. Finally, an integrated reliability assessment model is presented to conclude the research methodology by determining the overall sub-network reliability. The developed methodology is worked out on two case studies from the cities of London, Ontario and Doha, Qatar. Also, it is implemented on two different sub-networks from the City of London (north phase and south phase) for drawing comparisons, which concluded that the mechanical reliability of a network encompassed by newer components with less number of failures is greater than that of other networks. Additionally, the results of model implementation revealed that structure/configuration of the network also played an important role in affecting the overall network reliability. It was found 0.82 for the north phase sub-network and 0.84 for the south phase indicating that the south phase sub-network is more reliable. Therefore, the north phase sub-network takes the priority when scheduling the rehabilitation. The resulting reliability indices of a WDN, helps the municipalities to effectively prioritize the rehabilitation works at respective hierarchical levels. Moreover, the outcomes of this research also aid in identifying the most critical water main segments that need to be monitored constantly in order to prevent the network failure.