Water Simulation » EPANET related

Excel to EPANet

Elad Salomons — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:17:05 +0000

Oliver Diaz sent me a link to an Excel addon he wrote to convert Excel data to the INP file of EPANet. In addition, it can export excel data to AutoCAD by generating a dxf file. Points with coordinates X, Y, Z from an excel sheet can be exported to a dxf file as points, as lines or it could be generated also a longitudinal profile.

Excel to EPANet by Oliver Diaz

Both the INP and dxf file are created in the same folder of the excel file.

Web site: http://www.epanet.de.tf

Download: exceltools.zip

© Elad Salomons for Water Simulation, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autocad, epanet, excel

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EPANet and Matlab

Elad Salomons — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:00:18 +0000

A visitor that came to this blog from Demetrios Eliades’s web site reminded me of the EPANet and Matlab issue. About 3 years ago I was busy preparing for the Battle of the Water Sensor Networks (BWSN). A few people helped me test and debug the software utilities for the battle. One of them was Philip Jonkergouw from the University of Exeter. One of the methods we used to validate the programs was to independently write the code and compare results. I developed the programs in Visual Basic and Philip used Matlab.

The programs we wrote had to call the EPANet toolkit. Both of us spent a lot of time setting up the programs to work correctly according to the BWSN rules. When it did work we compared the results, fixed the bugs and the BWSN is history.

Calling EPANet from Matlab is still a task people are looking for help with. Philip posted a Matlab file and shared his experience. Some time later Demetrios published an “enhanced modified version” with some technical explanation for beginners.

More information regarding EPANet and Matlab integration can be found by searching the Water Simulation Forum.

I have met Demetrios in August 2006 at the WDSA 2006 and even had a good time. Who said water engineers can’t party?

From right to left: Ami Preis, Demetrios Eliades, Lina Perelman, yours truly and a Colombian guy that I can’t remember his name.

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A Step-by-Step Guide to EPANET 2.0 Simulations

Elad Salomons — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:15:17 +0000

Robert E. Pitt is a Professor at the University of Alabama. For his Urban Water Systems and Water Resources Engineering courses he wrote a Step-by-Step Guide to EPANET 2.0 Simulations.

The guide starts with creating a new project, adding elements, moving, deleting and editing objects. The text is accompanied with many screen shots and editors examples.

This is a good starting point for the novice user.

Download here or here (PDF)

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EPANET-Z – add online maps and satellite images to EPANET

Elad Salomons — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:13:53 +0000

EPANet-Z (in free beta) from Zonum Solutions is a modified recompiled version of EPANet that adds the option to insert map and satellite images to the network’s backdrop. The program uses online services like Yahoo maps and Google maps to extract the images. From Zonum’s web site:

The use of a backdrop file brought new capabilities to EPANET. However, how do I create this file? how big this image can be? Is it already georeferenced? How about using an aerial photo or satellite image as a background?

What would you say, if you were told that you could access satellite images for the whole World and use them as a backdrop for EPANET, just by clicking a button?… I would say EPANET-Z.

EPANET 2.00.12 (3/5/08) was modified and re-compiled to display Online Maps/imagery as a background. EPANET-Z = EPANET + Online Maps (Yahoo Maps, Google Maps, Virtual Earth)

I have entered a small part of my neighborhood network to the program. Unfortunately the satellite image in my region is of poor quality (click the image to enlarge):

EPANet-Z at Zonum Solutions

© Elad Salomons for Water Simulation, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: backdrop, EPANet-Z, images, Zonum

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EPANET-BAM

Elad Salomons — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:52:55 +0000

EPANET-BAM 1.0 is an augmented version of EPANET 2.00.10, open-source software distributed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that models flow and contaminant transport through water distribution pipe networks.

EPANET-BAM uses a new Bulk Advective Mixing (BAM) model to predict concentrations of an aqueous solute at the outlets of cross junctions in a water quality simulation.

Recent experimental and computational studies have shown that solute mixing in pipe junctions is incomplete, contrary to the assumptions of the complete-mixing model used in the original EPANET. These studies found that fluid streams entering the junction tended to bifurcate, depending on the relative momentum of the fluid streams, which resulted in incomplete mixing. Click here to see more details of the computational fluid dynamics modeling.

The Bulk Advective Mixing (BAM) model honors this observed behavior by retaining bulk fluid momentum. It also neglects turbulent diffusivities and instabilities at the impinging interface. Therefore, Bulk Advective Mixing is a lower bound to the amount of mixing that can occur in a junction, whereas complete-mixing is an upper bound.

EPANET-BAM uses a mixing parameter to scale between the predictions of the complete-mixing and BAM model predictions.

Source: Sandia Corporation

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MSX-GUI – Epanet Multi-Species Graphical User Interface

Elad Salomons — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:18:40 +0000

From Zonums Solutions:

EPANET-MSX (EPA, 2007) is distributed as a stand-alone console application (command line application) In order to run it; the user must open a Command Prompt window in Windows, and navigate to the folder where epanetmsx.exe was saved. The syntax is:

>> epanetmx example.inp example.msx example.rpt

Where:

example.inp describes the hydraulic characteristics of the network

example.msx describes the species being simulated and the chemical reaction/equilibrium that governs their dynamics.

example.rpt is the name of file where the results will be written.

If the executable and input files were saved to different folders then the full path name would have to be added. The output is sent to a file and then it has to be opened in a text editor to see it.

MSX-GUI makes easier those previous steps for the user by integrating a graphical user
interface.

Browse files and folders: Select your files with a mouse click

Input file editor: Preview and edit input files directly from MSXGUI

Report: View the results, if you want to keep them save them as either text or export to Excel.

No need to know command line commands, no need to type file-names, no need to switch
between applications.

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New Maintenance Release of EPANET 2

Elad Salomons — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 06:05:48 +0000

Lewis Rossman just announced the release on a New Maintenance Release of EPANET 2:

In preparation for the release of the Multi-Species Water Quality Modeling Extension to EPANET, we have just loaded a new maintenance update of EPANET, 2.00.11, to the new home page for EPANET: http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/dw/epanet.html.

The only new features we added were to increase the allowable size of ID labels to 31 characters, to save the epanet2.ini settings file to the users Application Data folder so that the program is easier to deploy within networked environments, and to make several additional parameters available to the ENgetnodevalue function of the Toolkit that are required by the multi-species extension.

We have made a number of changes to the hydraulic engine code so that it can better handle combinations of control valves connected to one another. In particular, it now produces correct solutions for multi-valve regulator stations that have two or more PRVs connected in parallel. I want to thank Rod Allen of the Portland Water Bureau for his assistance with this. These changes have resulted in some networks requiring more trials than before to reach convergence, so keep this in mind when applying the new update to your existing models.

The full list of updates and bug fixes is available from the web site. A more complete overhaul of the program, including a fix for the scaling problem with the backdrop map, is still in preparation and may be ready for release by the end of the year.

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EPANET.com – what is it?

Elad Salomons — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 10:33:57 +0000

Have you noticed the new web site EPANET.com? This new site states that it is:

Your one-stop source for software technology, news, and collaboration for the municipal water distribution modeling industry.

The site brings industry headlines, EPANet files download, few white papers, one book for sale and a registration form for a forum.

In the footer of the web page it is said that:

EPANET.com is not affiliated with or managed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency or any other governmental agency

So who is behind this web site?
Looking at the one book offered, “Advanced Water Distribution Modeling and Management “, the software link to “WaterCAD V8 XM“, the registration option to “WaterTalk” and the authors of the withe papers, it is clear that Haestad Methods (currently Bentley) is behind the site.

To make sure I have checked the domain registry for the owner of the epanet.com domain. Up until about a month ago the domain was registered under the name of Bentley. At this time the owner of the domain is hidden. I suspect that the owner did not change – but I could be wrong.

I have nothing against Bentley opening a site at EPANET.com but it would be only fair that they will disclose this fact.

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EPANet user list – 2006 update

Elad Salomons — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 06:12:13 +0000

During the last year, 277 posts were sent for 100 topics in the EPANet user-list.

The archive for all the posts can be found in the forums section.

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Epa2kmz (Epanet to Google Earth) – beta

Elad Salomons — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 20:12:30 +0000

Armando Barreto over at Zonum Solutions is looking for beta-testers for his new release – epa2kmz.

From Zonums Solutions web site:

Epa2kmz transforms NET Files to KMZ format. It allows to visualize Epanet projects in Google Earth, using the GE imagery as background.

Epa2kmz can transform the Network Map or the Network Map and the Hydraulic Analysis.

Epa2kmz wizard interface allows the user to navigate the process of transformation step by step, from the input file to the Google Earth visualization file. If the output visualization is not what you wanted, just click the back button and make the changes, no need to repeat to whole process.

Epa2kmz uses the EPANET Toolkit function library (Epanet2.dll) as the analysis engine. Also it incorporates functions and subroutines from the source code of EPANET.

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