Isolation Valve Placement Strategy for Resilience Improvement of Water Distribution Systems

Abstract

This study proposes a novel optimal isolation valve placement method for water distribution networks (WDNs) using dynamic programming. The proposed method automatically finds the best places to install isolation valves that lead to minimal pipe isolation risk for the system. It works by gradually removing the least impact valves from a valve redundant system until the desired number of valves is met. The proposed method works for both new systems and established systems. Simulation on a real-life WDN in the East Bay, the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area, shows that the system configured by the proposed method outperforms the existing valve configuration. Results show that many widely used empirical valve placement rules (e.g., N, N-1 rules) can be successfully interpreted and reproduced using the proposed method. It helps water utilities balance the number of valves to install (cost) and system reliability (benefit).