Implementing Delta Q Method to Accelerate the Optimization of Pressurized Pipe Networks

Abstract

To optimize the design of a pressurized pipe network, large number of possible solutions needs to be examined. This paper explores the option to accelerate the computation using Delta Q hydraulic method. The Delta Q method is firstly used in a standard form, as stand-alone hydraulic solver inside the evaluation function. Second version was to use Delta Q method once to solve the initial network, and during optimization procedure, unknown flow corrections were added to list of other unknowns for optimization. The suggested approach was tested on New York City distribution network reconstruction example using standard genetic algorithms (GA).