Water Simulation Packages (WSP)

From Energy-Solutions:

pipelinestudio is the industry-leading tool for design and off-line simulation of pipeline networks. It features:
* Quick and easy project setup
* Advanced hydraulic models for liquids and gas
* Steady-state and transient simulation

pipelinestudio improves the efficiency and accuracy of offline planning and design simulation through advanced offline simulation techniques for both natural gas and liquid pipelines. Through techniques such as steady-state and transient hydraulic analysis, pipelinestudio delivers a consistently higher quality of business decision, enabling better financial performance. And once pipelinestudio has constructed an offline engineering model of your pipeline network, the same model can be embedded into custom applications to enhance specific business processes and your financial performance overall.

pipelinestudio is flexible enough to consider your pipeline network as a whole and includes variables like demand forecasting and gas nominations. Its familiar Windows graphical interface makes it easy to use and pipelinestudio integrates with GIS and other corporate databases and applications—including other Energy Solutions products.

Use pipelinestudio for:
* Planning, strategically or for facilities
* Analyzing hydraulic characteristics
* Designing pipelines and equipment
* Modeling for predictive purposes
* Simulating situations from existing data

And pipelinestudio can help operators see the effects of operational changes without having to actually go to the control room. By studying the simulated results of proposed operating actions, quality decisions are promoted—realizing bottom-line savings through attractive maintenance savings and opportunity cost avoidance.

For more information see Energy-Solutions web site.

MathWorks, the makers of Matlab, released a new product that models and simulate hydraulic systems - SimHydraulics.

SimHydraulics extends Simulink with tools for modeling and simulating hydraulic power and control systems. It enables you to describe multidomain systems containing connected hydraulic and mechanical components as physical networks. It provides a representative library of hydraulic components and building blocks that lets you implement other components. SimHydraulics can be used for a variety of automotive, aerospace, defense, and industrial equipment applications, such as modeling automatic transmissions, actuating flight control surfaces, and actuating heavy equipment.

Key Features

• Modeling environment for building hydraulic and hydromechanical systems as physical networks
• More than 75 hydraulic and mechanical components, including pumps, valves, accumulators, and pipelines
• Foundation library of hydraulic building blocks and fundamental mechanical and mathematical elements
• Customizable library of common hydraulic fluids

For more information see SimHydraulics web site.

From Wallingford Software press release:

Wallingford Software announces that the next release of its flagship wastewater network management solution, InfoWorks CS v7.5, adds a powerful new capability for those seeking to accurately model overland urban flooding. This new feature, available this summer, produces flood mapping to represent flood depths and area of spread across the detailed local ground model.

Using a “flood compartment” to define the boundary of the flood mapping, flood levels within the compartments are calculated at manholes. When there is more than one manhole or flood point within a compartment, the flood levels can be calculated between the flood points.

Overland flow pathways can also be examined, showing the routes by which floodwaters access low points such as gardens and car parks. The flood depth is calculated from the flood level relative to the ground surface as represented by an InfoWorks CS ground model.

The display of results can be in both plan and cross-section images. In the plan view, color coding can represent the flood depths across the area. The cross section view shows both the network below the ground, and the image of the flooding above ground level.

For more information see Wallingford Software web site.

Bentley announced the new features of WaterGEMS and WaterCad that will be available in the new version - V8. The official release date is scheduled for the second quarter, 2006.

• MicroStation platform
• All-inclusive ArcMap interface
• Geodatabase integration
• TRex - Terrain Extraction
• Tool to find and fix network topology and connectivity issues
• Query-based selection sets
• Copy/Paste support from external sources
• Globally manage simple, composite, and pressure dependent demands
• Unit demand engineering libraries
• Criticality analysis
• Pressure-dependent demands
• Isolation valves
• Hydrants
• VSP batteries
• Fire Flow Navigator
• Background layer manager
• GIS-style symbology
• Advanced contouring

For more information see Bentley’s web site.

ATS-Chester developed an interface to link EPA’s EPANET software with ESRI’s ArcGIS® software (it seems that it is an old version).

Applications:

• Water system modeling
• Water quality management
• Facility planning
• GIS integration
• User-friendly modeling

Features:

• Developed using ESRI’s latest ArcObjects technology.
• Adds a new toolbar to ArcGIS standard interface.
• Allows you to create and edit your EPANET model from inside GIS.
• Provides a synchronization tool to update existing models from GIS updates.
• Exports GIS layers as a backdrop for EPANET model.
• Allows displaying output results as a thematic map.
• ArcView 3.x version (AVNet also available).

For more information see ATS-Chester web site.

Book related to the subject:

MWH Soft released InfoWater UDF, a solution for unidirectional flushing of drinking water distribution systems. InfoWater UDF delivers helps in managing the systematic flushing of water distribution systems to remove stagnant water along with mineral and sediment deposits that accumulate over time - restoring hydraulic capacity and improving water quality.

The hydraulic carrying capacity of pipes deteriorates with age, proportionate to the corrosive nature of the water and surrounding soils. Precipitation, microbiological activity and corrosion may all form deposits on the pipe walls. These accumulations increase hydraulic roughness and reduce the cross-sectional area and hydraulic carrying capacity of the mains. A loss in carrying capacity can lead to low pressures and the inability to deliver fire flows, especially during high demand periods. Slow-moving water can also result in a loss of chlorine residuals at stagnant spots, creating a public health risk. Problems associated with water quality degradation are particularly acute in dead-end lines and low-demand portions of water distribution systems.

More info at MWH Soft web site

You can calculate the waterhammer in pipelines by means of the flash-application in my www site:
www.waterhammer.de.tf

My other sites could be also useful for you:
www.bombas.de.tf
www.hydraulics.de.tf
www.velocidad.de.tf

Editor’s note: The programs work online, you can contact the software author via his web-page and get a stand alone version.

From KYPipe, LLC news release:

Designed to simplify the process of sizing Hydropneumatic Tanks for pressure regulation and pump cycle control Hydropneumatic Tanks are often used to control the cycling of pumps (on-off) in systems with little storage capacity.

With no Hydropneumatic Tank in these systems the pump will be required to start and stop constantly. This action places unnecessary stress on the pumps, consumes more electricity and produces pressure transients that can damage both the pumps and piping system. In addition the pump’s life will be considerably reduced.

By adding storage capacity (hydropneumatic tanks) the number of pump starts and stops can be minimized. Pumps will last much longer with greatly improved operations and reliability.

for more information see KYPipe web site.

The folks at Delft Hydraulics sent me a message that WANDA waterhammer program, since a few months ago can also automatically input EPANET files, thereby making it very easy to perform water hammer computations on distribution networks.

for more information see WANDA Transient web site.

Related book:

From CIVIL DESIGNER web page:

Civil Designer is the design system created by civil engineers for civil engineers. Water is a powerful, yet easy to use module for the analysis and extended time simulation of fluid handling networks consisting of pipes, valves, reservoirs and pump stations.

With the Water module you can:

• Import data from various sources such as ASCII tables, spreadsheets, dBase or MS Access tables as well as DWG/DXF files.
• Graphical interaction allows you to easily insert nodes and links, make changes to an existing layout by moving a node, change the flow direction, and query or edit a link with a click of the mouse.
• View the network with a bitmap or cadastral backdrop, or display the site contours and slope shading to decide on optimum network layout.
• Analyse suburbs separately and combine new and existing models to simulate the complex system of networks that are often found in modern towns and cities. The comprehensive network design will take into account the relationship between different branches.
• Time-based demand patterns may be defined for different categories of water usage. Each draw-off point may have a different demand pattern.
• The impact of extensions to the network, increased demand, imposition of water restrictions, power failures, major pipe breaks and empty reservoir conditions may be readily determined.
• Attach external water consumption tables and compare the measured usage to the modelled consumption to calibrate the demand or identify problem areas in the network.
• Up to 8 pumps may be handled in each pump station. The pumps are configured in parallel and may be controlled by pressure, water level or be time-based (on/off at certain times).
• Valves may be controlled manually, by pressure, by flow, or by level. Reservoirs may have any shape — you can select one of the most common shapes or define the water depth versus volume for a particular reservoir.
• Display the results of an analysis graphically by colour according to calculated results, in tables, or on time-based curves.
• Generate long sections with the ground profile automatically extracted from the supporting digital terrain model.

For more information see Civil Designer - Water web page.