Optimal Operation of Ground‐Water Supply Distribution Systems

Abstract

Pumping costs are the major operating expense of ground‐water supply systems. This paper presents a nonlinear optimization model to minimize pumping costs for both a well field and a main water‐supply distribution system. Considerations are given to individual well losses, pump efficiencies, and the hydraulic losses in the pipe network. In addition, the transient drawdown at each well is included in a well‐field model. When the demand served is less than the total capacity, there is a potential for reducing costs in the selection of pumps to meet that demand. A simulation model in conjunction with an optimization algorithm is assembled and optimized using the general nonlinear optimization program MINOS. For a given demand, the optimization procedure provides the best combination of pumps to meet that demand. Two example problems are given to evaluate the validity of the underlying assumptions and to demonstrate some of the characteristics of the proposed procedure.