Water Simulation Packages (WSP)

From HydrauliCAD™ web page:

HydrauliCAD™ is a highly sophisticated, efficient, and accurate tool for analyzing or managing water distribution networks. Fire Flow Scenarios, Water Quality Analysis, and Calibration of large distribution networks have never been as easy or as fast.

Its exceptionally “intuitive” user interface, flexible reporting tools, extensive network diagnostic capabilities along with “real-time” analysis, set a whole New Generation of Standards for ease of water system modeling, comprehensive data management & modeling speed.

Designer-Oriented Scenario Tools alongside ‘Scenario Compare’ (which displays the result differences between scenarios) encourage “What If” exploration and greatly enhance decision-making.

Designed By & For Water Model Users:
As career water system designers / modelers initially, the major programs did not fully meet our needs. We then defined our own “user perspective” criteria and worked closely together with experienced AutoCAD programmers to develop a program that meets the needs of all water model users. HydrauliCAD™ was built to be Fast, Efficient, and Robust for the Professional Modeler’s highly technical needs, while Intuitive and Easy for the Design Administrator’s and Municipal System Manager’s more “occasional” needs.

HydrauliCAD™ homepage

’Water Management for the 21st Century’
University of Exeter, UK
5 - 7 September 2005

This is the eighth in the CCWI series of biennial conferences organised by the universities of Brunel, De Montfort, Exeter and Imperial College. Focusing mainly on water systems modelling and control this conference aims to bring together leading experts from academia and industry. Researchers and practitioners will be given the opportunity to discuss, present and disseminate recent advances in research and industry. Other short courses, group meetings and exhibitions, are also planned during the conference.

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CCWI 2005 - Computing and Control in the Water Industry

By Avi Ostfeld and Elad Salomons

Abstract:Deliberate contamination is generally viewed as the most serious potential terrorist threat to water systems.Chemical or biological agents could spread throughout a distribution system and result in sickness or death among the people drinking the water.Since September 11,2001 the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency’s water protection task force and regional offices have initiated massive actions to improve the security of the drinking water infrastructure.A methodology is presented for finding the optimal layout of an early warning detection system ~EWDS!.The detection system is comprised of a set of monitoring stations aimed at capturing deliberate external terrorist hazard intrusions through water distribution system nodes—sources,tanks,and consumers.The optimization considers extended period unsteady hydraulics and water quality conditions for a given defensive level of service to the public,defined as a maximum volume of polluted water exposure at a concentration higher than a minimum hazard level.Such a scheme provides an EWDS for a deliberate terrorist external hazard intrusion,as well as for accidental contamination entries under unsteady conditions—a problem that currently has not been solved.The methodology is cast in a genetic algorithm framework for integration with EPANET and is demonstrated through two example applications.

Full paper

From WaterCad web page:

WaterCAD is a complete geographic information management system for your water utility in a cost-effective package that saves you money each time you use it. Analyze water quality, determine fire flow requirements, calibrate large distribution networks and more with WaterCAD’s powerful hydraulic analysis tools. WaterCAD is a sophisticated tool that enables engineers and decision makers to analyze and manage distribution networks with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency.

WaterCAD homepage

EPANET is a Windows 95/98/NT program that performs extended period simulation of hydraulic and water-quality behavior within pressurized pipe networks. A network can consist of pipes, nodes (pipe junctions), pumps, valves and storage tanks or reservoirs. EPANET tracks the flow of water in each pipe, the pressure at each node, the height of water in each tank, and the concentration of a chemical species throughout the network during a simulation period comprised of multiple time steps. In addition to chemical species, water age and source tracing can also be simulated.

The Windows version of EPANET provides an integrated environment for editing network input data, running hydraulic and water quality simulations, and viewing the results in a variety of formats. These include color-coded network maps, data tables, time series graphs, and contour plots.

EPANET was developed by the Water Supply and Water Resources Division (formerly the Drinking Water Research Division) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory. It is public domain software that may be freely copied and distributed.

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Epanet 2

FireFlow is a Freeware, EPANET based tool, which will calculate the available flow at network junctions while a minimal pressure is kept at demand junctions. FireFlow can run in a “Steady State” mode or perform an “Extended Period Simulation” (EPS). Using the EPS mode you can find how long can a specified flow be delivered? Or, what is the maximal flow that can be delivered for a specified period?

For details

Hello all,

My name is Elad and I’m a water resources engineer. Once in a while I’m asked to recommend a water simulation package (WSP). Usually my answer changes according to the person asking. If it is a student or someone doing academic research I often send him to the EPA web site to download EPANET.

But when it is an engineering firm asking or a small water utility then I must sit back and think what the best WSP is for the client. What are the needs? Does he need database connectivity, GIS, AutoCAD, asset management…. and so on.

Since there are more than a few WSPs out there I made a short, and not complete, list of them. This started as one simple web page but I got many positive responses and suggestions to include more information about water related software, so I decided to give it a try and open a bigger web site.

The main page of the site will always show the last entries (AKA “post”) to the site. Each post belongs to one or more categories. You can see that the menu on the left hand side shows a list of categories. For example, the post for EPANET will be a part of the ‘water simulation packages’ category and the ‘free software’ category.

For each post you can place a comment by using the interface just under the post. You don’t have to register or give any personal information. If you want to make a new post you will have to register by using the link just under the calendar in the menu. At the moment anyone can post here but please don’t abuse this site. I will delete any post that falls in that category. Commercial posts are welcome.

This site is under heavy construction and may be out of service sometimes. If you have any ideas, remarks, comments or anything to tell me please use the comments interface below.