by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Papers and Research — No Comments ↓

An article by the Safe Drinking Water Trust:

Distribution system flushing programs have been around for a long, long time. In a nutshell, these programs provide systems with an organized way to clean out the rust and other sediments that have settled in the water lines over the years. Whether water system crews simply crack open a few fire hydrants around town or have spent a great deal of time devising an in-depth unidirectional flushing program (UFP), itג€™s a sure bet that if your system hasnג€™t been flushed for awhile your water quality will suffer. If this is the case, then there is no time like the present to take a closer look at your distribution systemג€™s preventative maintenance program before you receive a phone call like:

Read the full article here.

by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Announcements, Events & news — No Comments ↓

8th Annual International Symposium on Water Distribution Systems Analysis

Cincinnati, OH, August 27-30, 2006
http://www.eng.uc.edu/wdsa2006/

Background:
Dating to 1999, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has sponsored annual symposia on water distribution systems analysis (WDSA). These international meetings have come to be recognized as the North American focal point for computational methods used to analyze, design, and operate water distribution systems, as well as related field studies and applications. For 2006, the organizing committee will expand this annual event into a one-time stand-alone Symposium dedicated to WDSA, with increased opportunities for participation and expanded scope. Please see the above web site for complete details. Attendance is expected to be in the range of 250 to 300 participants drawn from universities, governmental agencies, water utilities and consulting engineering firms.

Topics of Interest:
Abstracts are solicited on virtually all topics of relevance to water distribution systems analysis. Applied, theoretical, and methodological studies are welcome. Topic categories include:

  • System Operation and Control
  • System Design
  • Optimization Algorithms for System Design and Control
  • Real-Time Forecasting, Operational Analysis, and Event Detection
  • Vulnerability/Consequence Assessment
  • Water Security Research and Applications
  • Water Quality Sensing and Monitoring
  • Case Studies and Field Applications
  • Hydraulic Transient Analysis
  • Leak Detection
  • Infrastructure Asset Management
  • Model Calibration Algorithms and Applications
  • Network Demand Modeling
  • Network Hydraulic Models and Algorithms
  • Network Water Quality Models and Algorithms
  • Stochastic Simulation and Analysis
  • Systems Integration or Integration with GIS/SCADA/CIS

Venue:
The venue will be the new Marriott Kingsgate Conference Center at the University of Cincinnati.

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by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in General — No Comments ↓

Hello all,

If you have any news item that may be suitable to be included in this web site, please let me know.

You can just drop me a note using the contact form.

Thank you,

Elad

by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Free software — No Comments ↓

Manuel Lֳ³pez-Ibֳ¡ֳ±ez sent me this article by Tom Adelstein about open source software for the water industry:

1) Bulk Meter Flow and Operations (BMFO) – a web-based application to manage water meter readings.

2) DC Maintenance Management System (DCMMS) – the system provides a web-based application to record and analyze customer complaints and repairs in water supply networks.

You can find the full article in the Linux Journal

by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Announcements, Storm & Sewer software — No Comments ↓

The followings information was received from Bentley:

The Haestad Methods Solution Center is proud to announce the latest version of Bentley’s flagship stormwater modeling solution, CivilStorm V8.

The new version represents yet another milestone for the industry, becoming the only stormwater model to offer users two hydrodynamic engines (EPA’s SWMM, and Haestad Methods’, numerically robust and fast, implicit solution), and three different interchangeable and totally compatible platforms: stand-alone, AutoCAD, and now MicroStation.

The new MicroStation interface is a perfect fit for CivilStorm. It is not only the first development of a Haestad Methods product in Bentley’s engineering platform, but also a celebrated industry breakthrough, being MicroStation the platform of choice of forty-eight of the 50 U.S. state transportation departments.

Bentley’s multi-platform technology is allowing users to collaborate effectively as it delivers solutions that integrate with most engineering platforms, including AutoCAD, ArcGIS and MicroStation.

Version 8 also includes many other user-requested features, including support for new unit hydrographs (i.e. Delmarva), enhanced water quality features, direct import from EPA’s SWMM and Bentley’s StormCAD, and the new element prototypes, query-based selection sets, and user-defined attributes.

For more information see CivilStorm’s web page.

by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Books — 3 Comments ↓

New book from MWH Soft: Comprehensive Handbook on Water Quality Analysis for Distribution Systems By Kevin E. Lansey and Paul F. Boulos.

Safe drinking water is essential to life. While effective water treatment is imperative, the distribution system itself represents the final barrier in safeguarding water quality and plays a critical role in protecting a nation’s health, stimulating its economic growth and prosperity, and quenching its thirst.

Modeling and analysis of water quality in distribution systems is vital in giving engineers a better understanding of the dynamics of water quality variations, the complex processes taking place in the distribution system environment, and the ways in which these factors impact system performance and safety. Comprehensive Handbook on Water Quality Analysis for Distribution Systems brings together the theoretical and practical information needed to conduct these crucial water quality simulations in pipes, at junctions, within reservoirs and tanks, and in complex networks. It provides a comprehensive overview of distribution system water quality modeling, from steady state equilibrium to more sophisticated dynamic analysis techniques and reaction kinetics, encompassing transformations that occur in the bulk water phase, at the pipe wall, and within storage facilities. Mastery of these analyses will lead not only to better understanding of the factors affecting water quality degradation in drinking water distribution systems, but to enhanced management, design, operation, protection, rehabilitation, and maintenance of those systems – resulting in safer water for everyone.

Available through the MWHSoft Bookstore.

by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in EPANET related, Free software — No Comments ↓

A new release of the DC Water Design Extension is available from:

http://dcwaterdesign.sourceforge.net

The DC Water Design Extension is a free ArcView 3.x extension that integrates EPANET with ArcView.

The changes:

* Bug fixes especially to the start menu links

* Three new functions: Split Model, Merge Model, Extract Model

by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Commercial software, Storm & Sewer software — 1 Comment ↓

MWH Soft Ships InfoSWMM Version 4.0 for Comprehensive Urban Drainage Modeling. The company announced the worldwide availability of the V4 Generation of InfoSWMM for ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA).

As a full-featured urban drainage network analysis and design program, InfoSWMM delivers the highest rate of return in the industry. All operations of a typical sewer system – from analysis and design to management functions such as water quality assessment, pollution prediction, urban flooding, real-time control and record keeping – are addressed in a single, fully integrated geoengineering environment. The program offers users unprecedented power in managing urban runoff and wet weather water quality problems in combined, sanitary and storm sewers; optimizing BMP and LID designs; and meeting SSO and CSO regulations. The model also offers highly sophisticated Real-Time Control (RTC) schemes for the operational management of wastewater systems and hydraulic structures. The unparalleled performance modeling of InfoSWMM sets new benchmarks in scalability, reliability, functionality and flexibility within the powerful ArcGIS environment.

For the full press release click here.

by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Free software — 21 Comments ↓

HAMMER is a free program I used a few years ago to simulate water hammer in a water pipe.

From HAMMER read me file:

HAMMER is a program which simulates the effects of water hammer in a reservoir and pipeline system in which a valve at the downstream end is opened or closed by the user. The program is a product of the Urban Water Systems Group, School of Civil Engineering, Queensland University of Technology.

The program solves the differential equations of transient flow in a simple pipeline with a reservoir at the upstream end and a valve at the downstream end. The aim of the program is to provide a demonstration of the effects of water hammer in a simple pipe, reservoir and valve system. The method of characteristics is used in the solution of the differential equations.

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by Elad SalomonsPosted on Posted in Papers and Research — No Comments ↓

The Human-Competitive Awards, the ג€œHumiesג€, are awarded to techniques of genetic and evolutionary computation that are competitive with the work of creative and inventive humans.

The Darwin Designer team, from Haestad Methods, won an honorable mention this year for their water distribution design genetic algorithm solver. The method is presented in ג€œOPTIMIZING WATER SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT FOR A GROWING COMMUNITYג€

Abstract:

To meet the water supply requirement in a growing community, system improvement alternatives needs to be identified to satisfy the increasing demand. This paper shows that the intelligent optimization modeling tool can assist practical engineers and decision-maker to optimize system expansions and prioritize the budget allocation of capital improvement program (CIP) for a real world water system. The water distribution system undertaken for study represents a community where the water consumption is projected to grow 30% in 15 years. Increasing consumption requires that the water system be improved to move water from sources into the growing areas. The criteria for enhancing the system capacity include satisfying the pressure requirement, the maximum allowable flow velocity and sufficient tank storage. The improvement task is to identify the feasible pipe routes and pipe sizes of the new pipes. Due to the complex interconnectivity and the large combinations of possible pipe routes/sizes, it proved technically impossible for experienced engineers to identify a feasible design solution. GA-based optimization design tool has been applied to forge the cost-effective system improvement solutions. The study shows that optimization modeling is a powerful approach for supporting and enhancing a sound decision-making process in water industry.

Wu Z. Y., Walski T. M., Naumick G., Dugandzic J. and Nasuti R. (2005) “Optimizing Water system improvement for a growing community.” proc. of International Conference of Computing and Control in the Water Industry, Sept. 5-7 2005, Exeter, UK

For more information see:
The ג€œHumiesג€ award
ג€œOPTIMIZING WATER SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT FOR A GROWING COMMUNITYג€
Darwin Designer