Efficient Identification of Segments in Water Distribution Networks

Abstract

A valve-enclosed segment is the basic unit of water distribution networks (WDNs) in reliability analysis and optimal design. Based on the theory of the transitive closure of graphs, this paper presents a new method for identifying the whole segments in large WDNs in a single run. The method clones real valves as fictitious valves, uses valve pairs to simulate valve on-off status, and improves the Warshall algorithm to compute node transitive closure sets to identify all segments at a time. Additionally, redundant valves, endpoint valves, leaf segments, orphan segments, and regular segments are analyzed. One-way valves are considered in an unintended segment analysis. The method is described and discussed in detail by using a small sample network, then applied to a large real network containing 69,815 valves to prove its capability and efficiency.