RELIABILITY IMPROVEMENT FOR WATER DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS THROUGH INCREASING PIPE SIZE

A method of reliability improvement is proposed for water distribution networks. The ratio of expected maximum total water supplied to total water demanded is employed as a measure of reliability. A nonlinear maximum flow model is used to calculate the maximum supply of water under possible link failures and the reliability of the network. Reliability is improved by increasing pipe size. The pipe size increase is determined by considering the ratio of marginal reliability to marginal cost. The method gives a symmetric design when the network is symmetric.