AWWA JAW67814

With the emphasis in recent years on intentional and nonintentional contamination events and optimal sensor placement, water utility managers are interested in network skeletonization issues because some degree of network simplification or aggregation is required to obtain both hydraulic and water quality results and assessment estimates within reasonable time frames and restrictive budgets. A method has been developed that can simplify complex water distribution system network modeling so that the reduced or simplified network provides reliable results for both pressures and contaminant concentrations. The methodology for network skeletonization presented here is based on both hydraulic and water quality aggregation of an all-pipes network. In this research, the aggregation method was capable of reducing system size by almost half, while still preserving system characteristics in terms of reliably simulating pressures and concentrations. These results demonstrated that even when an aggregated representation of an all-pipes network is used, reliable hydraulic and water quality results can be obtained. Utility managers using a reduced network that is based on the methodology described in the article can be confident that the reliability and robustness of simulated results have not been compromised. Includes 22 references, tables, figures.