AWWA IMTECH51380

Professionals involved in the water supply industry more often than not, and with considerable justification, view hydraulic transients in a negative way, seeing these sometimes large pressure waves as potential threats to the safety and integrity of their systems. In the near future, however, waterworks engineers, planners and managers may overcome their aversion to water hammer phenomena because transients have the potential to provide a great deal of information about the state of water systems. By measuring safely induced or naturally occurring high-frequency pressure events, transients offer the possibility of inexpensive data collection with a wide coverage of the system. Water demands, leakage, pipe condition (roughness), closed or partially closed valves, even pockets of trapped air can, in theory, all be detected using recorded pressure data. This paper discusses the methodology and potential for application of inverse transient models for information collection in water supply, transmission and distribution systems. Includes 13 references, figures.