Flexible design of urban water distribution systems

Huang, Danguang (2011). Flexible design of urban water distribution systems. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Urban water distribution systems (UWDS) are highly inter-connected and under many uncertainties from water demand, pipe roughness, and component failure. Accurate projections of these uncertainties are almost impossible, and thus it may not be a proper method to design the system to meet its performance criteria for the forecasted scenario. The system is designed for the deterministic not for the uncertainties, as a result it may not be efficient or effective to be operated under different future scenarios. Flexible design is shown as a useful strategy to cost-effectively respond to uncertainties because of its consideration of uncertainties in advance, and has been successfully applied in many engineering systems.

The objective of flexible design is to identify flexibility sources in UWDS and embed them into the system design to respond to uncertainties. The thesis discussed different terms to define the property of the system to respond to uncertainties and proposed a definition of flexibility for UWDS. It then proposed different measures to indicate flexibility value and introduced an efficient method to handle numerous uncertain parameters in the model. It also develops an efficient method to identify high value flexibility sources based on the Flexibility Index. Finally the thesis presents a flexibility-based optimisation model that enable water engineers to compare different flexible design alternatives and generate optimal solutions.
A definition of flexibility in UWDS is proposed to illustrate broadly its property to respond to uncertainties, since it is not so useful, or at least in this thesis to distinguish similar terms to define the property of the system to respond to uncertainties.

Identified flexibility sources by the proposed method is not useful for the flexibility-based optimization model to design a system, but it might be a powerful tool to locate the weak points in the system or provide better update options during rehabilitation of the system. The computational efficiency of the proposed flexibility-based optimisation model was demonstrated by dramatic decreasing on the number of the required hydraulic simulation in the case study. Flexible designs in the case study are more expensive than inflexible design, but have better hydraulic performance under uncertainties.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):