Considering Actual Pipe Connections in Water Distribution Network Analysis

The classical assumption of representing total demand along a pipe as two lumped withdrawals at its terminal nodes is hitherto common. It is a simplification of the network topology which is useful in order to drastically reduce the number of nodes during network simulation. Conversely, this simplification does not preserve energy balance equation of pipes and, for this reason, it is an approximation that could generate significant head loss errors. This paper presents a modification of the global gradient algorithm (GGA) which entails an enhancing of GGA (EGGA) permitting the effective introduction of the lumped nodal demands, without forfeiting correctness of energy balance, by means of a pipe hydraulic resistance correction. The robustness and convergence properties of the algorithm are compared with those of the classical GGA. Furthermore, the effectiveness of EGGA is demonstrated by computing the network pressure status under different configurations of the connections along the pipes of a test network.