General Model for Water-Distribution Pipe Breaks: Development, Methodology, and Application to a Small City in Quebec, Canada

Abstract

To model water-pipe breaks a generalization is proposed of an approach where a Weibull exponential model was used for simulation. In this study, a generalization of this approach was performed by developing a general model using three or more probability distributions to describe the time of occurrence of a pipe’s failure. The previous two-distribution model constitutes a special case of this new general model. In addition, explanatory variables were incorporated into the proposed model. Finally, from the proposed general model, the Weibull-exponential-exponential (WEE) model was derived to model water-distribution pipe breaks in a small city in Canada.