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Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210

12th International Conference on Computing and Control for the Water Industry, CCWI2013

Technical performance evaluation of water distribution networks

based on EPANET
J. Muranhoa,b,c*, A. Ferreirad, J. Sousac,e, A. Gomesa,b, A. S Marquesc,f
a
Departamento de Informtica, Universidade da Beira Interior, Rua Marqus d'vila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilh, Portugal
b
Instituto de Telecomunicaes, Universidade da Beira Interior, Rua Marqus d'vila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilh, Portugal
c
IMAR - Instituto do Mar,Dep. Cincias da Vida, Universidade de Coimbra,3004-517 Coimbra, Portugal
d
U.T.C. Eng. Civil,Instituto Politcnico de Castelo Branco,Av. do Empresrio,6000-767 Castelo Branco, Portugal
e
Dep.Engenharia Civil, Instituto Politcnico de Coimbra, Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal
f
Dep. Engenharia Civil, Universidade de Coimbra, Rua Lus Reis Santos - Plo II, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal

Abstract

This paper explores the use of Technical Performance Indexes (TPIs) to assess the operational performance of Water
Distribution Networks (WDNs) and exemplifies its suitability to easily identify problematic zones. The paper also points out
some problems associated with the existent TPIs and proposes new analysis tools to avoid these difficulties. These new analysis
tools (such as state variable slack and constraint violation) are conjugated with the pressure-driven simulation model for
illustration purposes, including operational performance assessment during pipe bursts or firefighting scenarios, and to identity
and account for the demand not satisfied due to those events.

2013
2013 The
The Authors.
Authors.Published
Publishedby
byElsevier
ElsevierLtd.
Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection
Selection and
and peer-review
peer-reviewunder
underresponsibility
responsibilityofofthe
theCCWI2013
CCWI2013Committee.
Committee

Keywords: EPANET, Performance Assessment, Performance Indicators, Water Distribution Networks, WaterNetGen.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 275 242081; fax: +351 275 319899
E-mail address: jmuranho@ubi.pt

1877-7058 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the CCWI2013 Committee
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2014.02.133
1202 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210

1. Introduction

Water distribution networks play an important role in modern societies being its proper operation directly
related to the populations well-being. However, water supply activities tend to be natural monopolies, so to
guarantee good service levels in a sustainable way the water supply systems performance must be evaluated. The
incorporation of performance assessment methodologies in the management practices creates competitiveness
mechanisms that lead to the culture of efficiency and the pursuit of continuous improvement.
The desired sustainability involves both water services and water infrastructures. The optimal management of
urban water infrastructures is an unavoidable issue that needs to be addressed given their intrinsic value (water
infrastructures represent an important portion of the municipal public infrastructures) and the potential
consequences of the service disruption. Water infrastructure management aggregates management, information and
engineering knowledge domains and is differently viewed by the different stakeholders. For example, the
maintenance manager can see the water infrastructure as a collection of assets that needs to be maintained while the
operation manager sees the network as a whole that needs to be operated. Anyway, as pointed by Alegre and
Coelho (2012), these partial views must be conciliated to produce an integrated infrastructure asset management,
driven by the need to provide adequate levels of service in a sustainable way in the long-term. Infrastructure asset
management is nowadays a real practice for many water utilities and an active research field (Alegre, 2010; Alegre
and Coelho, 2012; Cardoso et al., 2012; Carrio et al., 2012).
The performance assessment is the key towards sustainability, where performance assessment can be defined as
any approach that allows for the evaluation of the efficiency or the effectiveness of a process or activity through
the production of performance measures (Alegre and Coelho, 2012). Performance assessment is currently a well-
established practice in the water sector - water supply and wastewater collection (Cardoso et al., 2004; Kanakoudis
and Tsitsifli, 2010; Sadiq et al., 2010) and is also giving the first steps in solid waste services (Alegre et al., 2009).
There are essentially two main types of performance evaluation tools available to water and wastewater utility
managers (Cardoso et al., 2004): systems of performance indicators and technical performance assessment tools.
Performance evaluation methodologies, such as the International Water Association (IWA) Performance Indicators
System (PIS) (Alegre et al., 2000, 2006), are used to evaluate the water utilitys performance where a performance
indicator is defined as a quantitative measure of a particular aspect of the water undertakings performance or
standard of service. Performance indicators are used to assess the performance of the whole service, covering all
its sectors of activity (Skarda, 1997; van der Willigen, 1997; Alegre et al., 2000, 2006; Gurin-Schneider and
Brunet, 2002; Matos et al., 2003; Crotty, 2004; Lafferty and Lauer, 2005; Kun et al., 2007; Radivojevic et al. 2007;
Quadros et al., 2010).
Technical performance assessment tools are related to specific aspects of the system (e.g. hydraulic behaviour).
Alegre and Coelho (1992, 1995) and Coelho (1997a) propose technical performance indexes (TPIs) to evaluate the
hydraulic performance of WDNs. Coelho (1997b) presents a TPI to evaluate water quality performance. TPIs have
been also used in other research domains: urban sewer systems (Cardoso et al., 2005), evaluation of the effect of
pressure dependent analysis on quality performance assessment of WDNs (Tabesh and Dolatkhahi, 2006);
evaluation of the WDNs performance for different pipe materials (Tamminen et al, 2008; Ramos et al., 2009);
assessment of the operational performance of water treatment plants (Vieira et al., 2010); among others.
The data required to compute TPIs can be produced by simulation tools and exported to other tools (like
spreadsheets) for post-processing. However, this procedure is time burden and the data manipulation can introduce
errors. To avoid these drawbacks, this paper follows a different approach: compute and represent the TPIs inside
the EPANET software (Rossman, 2000) in a manner completely integrated with the EPANET user interface.
This paper introduces the concepts of slack variable, constraint violation and number of storeys of a
junction node. The number of storeys of a junction node expresses the number of storeys of the buildings in the
surroundings of that node (an indirect way to define the buildings height). These new evaluation tools and the
TPIs are integrated in WaterNetGen (Muranho et al., 2012) and are used here to explore the WDNs behaviour
under certain critical events, like pipe bursts.
 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210 1203

Nomenclature

PIS Performance Indicators System

TPI Technical Performance Index
WDN Water Distribution Network

D Pipe diameter (in millimetres)

Dk Diameter of pipe k
Lk Length of pipe k
N Number of storeys above ground
NN Number of nodes
NP Number of pipes
P(N) Pressure of a node with N storeys
Pi Current pressure of node i
Pimin Pressure value below which no demand can be satisfied at node i
Piref Reference (or service) pressure necessary to fully satisfy required demand at node i
Qi Water demand of node i
TPIpress Technical performance index for nodal pressure state variable
TPIvel Technical performance index for pipe flow velocity state variable
V(D) Maximum allowed water velocity for a pipe with diameter D
W[] Generalization operator
hmax Maximum allowed pressure
hmin Minimum required pressure (service pressure)
pi Performance of node i
pk Performance of pipe k
qiavl Available (or satisfied) pressure at node i
qireq Required demand at node i
vmax Maximum allowed pipe flow velocity
wi Performance weight of node i
wk Performance weight of pipe k
Pressure-demand relationship exponent

2. Evaluation tools

The evaluation of the technical performance intends to classify the WDNs behaviour in accordance to a merit
scale. The TPIs evaluate the behaviour of each model element (node, link) by comparing their current value with
reference values to obtain their performance value. This performance evaluation methodology is based on three
components (Coelho, 1997a): 1) state variable; 2) penalty (or performance) curve; and 3) generalization operator.
The state variable is related to the specific aspect in consideration. The penalty curve states a relation between the
variable values and the performance classification scale (that is, evaluates the merit of each element). The
generalization operator aggregates the individual performance values to produce the global system performance
index. The generalization operator can be the average (or weighted average) aggregate function, or other more
suitable depending on the purpose of the analysis. Several TPIs can be combined to obtain the WDN global TPI.
Fig. 1 shows two examples of penalty curves for the state variables nodal pressure and pipe flow velocity. The
performance is set based on the relative position of the state variable value to some reference marks: hmin and hmax
are the minimum required and maximum allowed pressures, respectively, and vmax is the maximum allowed pipe
flow velocity.
1204 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210

Fig. 1. Performance curves for nodal pressure and pipe flow velocity state variables. hmin and hmax represent the minimum required and
maximum allowed pressures. vmax refers to the maximum allowed pipe flow velocity.

The performance curves produce performance values between 0% (no service) and 100% (optimum service).
These curves try to capture the relative importance of the state variable value for the feature under analysis. These
curves are drawn in an empirical basis, based on the expert experience. The performance curve for pressure tries to
capture the idea that nodal pressures close to the minimum required (service pressure) are preferable as they
represent lower energy states, the system elements are under less mechanical stress, and certainly, correspond to a
lower level of water losses. The performance curve for the pipe flow velocity intends to state that values above
some maximum recommended are undesirable (increased pipes wear abrasion, and higher head loss, noise and
hydraulic transients).
The global TPIs are computed by applying the generalization operator (W[]). The TPIs for the pressure and
velocity state variables can be computed using weighted averages, considering weights for the nodes proportional
to their consumptions and for the pipes proportional to their water volume. That is, the global performance indexes
for pressure (TPIpress) and velocity (TPIvel) can be computed by expressions (1) and (2), respectively.

NN
Qi
TPI press = W [ pi ] = w p wi = (1)

i i NN
i =1
j
Qj

NP
Lk Dk2
TPI vel = W [ pk ] = wk pk wk = (2)

NP
k =1
j
L j D 2j

where NN is the number of nodes in the network, pi is the performance value, wi is the weight, Qi is the water
demand of node i, NP is the number of pipes in the network, pk is the performance value, wk is the weight, Lk and
Dk are the length and diameter of pipe k.
As previously mentioned, each junction node has a new property: the number of storeys. With this new field the
minimum required pressure can be expressed as a function of the storeys. In this work, this relationship is
expressed by the formula P(N) = 100 + 40N, where N is the number of storeys above ground, with P in kPa. For
example, for N = 1, P(1) = 140 kPa 14.29 m and for N = 5, P(5) = 300 kPa 30.61 m. To compute the pressure
performance (pi) for a junction node (i) using the pressure performance curve in Fig. 1, it is necessary to compute
the hmin value using the above formula and replacing N with the number of storeys of the node (i). In a similar way,
it can be used a formula for the maximum allowed pressure. In this work, the maximum allowed pressure (hmax) is
set to 600 kPa ( 61.22 m).
The computation of the performance (pk) for a pipe (k) using the (flow velocity) performance curve in Fig. 1,
needs to express vmax as a function of the pipe characteristics, in this case as a function of the pipe diameter. In this
 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210 1205

work, the maximum allowed velocity is given by the formula V(D) = 0.127D0.4, with D in millimetres and V in
m/s.
The above minimum required pressure and maximum allowed velocity formulas can be used to produce limit
values dependent on the element (node, pipe) under analysis. A constraint violation occurs when the state variable
value overcomes the limit value (e.g., the nodal pressure falls below the minimum required pressure).
The concept of slack variable is introduced to represent the unused amount of resource (e.g., the minimum
pressure slack is the amount of service pressure above the minimum required pressure).

3. Performance evaluation case study

The above performance analysis tools are applied to a WDN model generated with the WaterNetGen software.
The example network comprises 200 junctions, 218 pipes, and 2 reservoirs. The network supply different sectors
with buildings ranging from one to five storeys see Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Water distribution network supplying different sectors (buildings with one to five storeys).

The network is supposed to supply 30,000 inhabitants with a daily per capita consumption of 200 litres, which
corresponds to an average demand of 69.44 ls-1, with the demand pattern shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Demand pattern for the example network.

1206 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210

3.1. Geographical representation of the performance

In heterogeneous networks, supplying sectors with buildings of very different heights, the map of pressures isnt
enough to infer about the quality of the service provided. Considering, for example, the map of pressures at the
start of the simulation period (0:00) shown in Fig. 4, it is not obvious which nodes present low pressure
performance, and this occurs because the performance value depends on the node hmin value (which depends on the
number of storeys of the node).

Fig. 4. Nodal pressure map 0:00 Hrs.

So it is not obvious if a yellow node has a good or a bad performance. The geographical representation of the
performance can relieve this problem. In this case the performance of each junction node (or pipe) is computed and
represented with a colour code see Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Nodal pressure performance 0:00 Hrs.

 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210 1207

In summary, the integration of the performance evaluation process in the simulation tool allows a spatial view of
the network behaviour sensible to the context (for example, considering the number of storeys above the ground or
the pipe diameters) and a quick identification of the elements with poor performance. It should be noted, however,
that a good performance value can hide service levels problems. For example, reporting to the pressure
performance curve of Fig. 1, a performance of 75% can result from an excess of energy (current pressure equal to
hmax) or from a deficit of energy (current pressure below hmin). The new evaluation tools, proposed in this work,
can be used to surpass this problem.

3.2. Slack variables and constraint violations

The slack variables represent the amount of resource available, that is, indicates how far the state variable is
from its limit value. The slack map shows the slack of each element. For example, Fig. 6 shows the slack map for
the minimum required pressure at the hour of greatest consumption (7:00 Hrs).

Fig. 6. Network slack map for the minimum pressure 7:00 Hrs.

The slack map can be used to choose preferable points for future network expansions, initiating the selection
process by the nodes with greater slack.
Another map that is very useful is the violations map, as it put in evidence the elements which violate some
constraint. For example, the constraint violations map can assist in the determination of the consequences, in terms
of service levels, of a pipe burst see Fig. 7.
1208 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210

Fig. 7. Minimum pressure constraint violations map burst in pipe P50.

The constraint violations map highlights the affected zones. This information can be used in criticality studies to
evaluate the impact of element outages taking into account the specific zone context (hospital, school, services,
industry, military, etc.). For this kind of scenarios, the pressure-driven simulation mode of WaterNetGen is
explored to compute the demand that can be satisfied under the pressure-deficient situation. The available demand
(qiavl) is computed based on the following pressure-relationship (Wagner et al., 1988):

1 Pi Pi ref

req Pi Pi
min
qi ( Pi ) = qi ref
avl
min
Pi min < Pi < Pi ref (3)
Pi Pi
0 Pi Pi min

where Piref is the reference (or service) pressure necessary to fully satisfy the required demand qireq, Pimin is the
pressure below which no water can be supplied, (= 0.5) is the exponent of the pressure-demand relationship, Pi is
the current pressure at node i, and qiavl is the available demand (satisfied).

3.3. Demand not satisfied

The consequence of a pipe burst can also be analysed in terms of the difference between the demand required
and the demand satisfied (qireq - qiavl). Fig. 8 illustrates the amount of demand not satisfied as a consequence of the
pipe burst scenario represented in Fig. 7.
 J. Muranho et al. / Procedia Engineering 70 (2014) 1201 1210 1209

Fig. 8. Demand required but not satisfied burst in pipe P50 (Fig. 7).

4. Conclusion

This paper presents and explores new performance evaluation tools. The traditional TPIs based on state
variables have been implemented in WaterNetGen, an extension of the EPANET software. The new elements of
analysis based on slack variables and constraints violation have been also incorporated in WaterNetGen.
The evaluation tools have been explored through a case study to show how to easily identify model elements
with poor performance, identify the preferable points for network expansion, help previewing the consequences of
eventual pipe bursts, and to compute the demand required but not satisfied and identify the network nodes where
this occurs.
The authors believe that the inclusion of the performance evaluation elements in WaterNetGen can benefit a
large user community and open new application fields.

Availability

WaterNetGen can be downloaded from http://www.dec.uc.pt/~WaterNetGen.

Acknowledgements

This work has been produced with the partial support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology,
through POPH/FSE funding, under Doctoral Grant No. SFRH/BD/48252/2008.

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