An optimization technique for water network operations and design

Hydraulic simulators and databases are routinely used for simulating, storing and maintaining network models. However there is a lack of a generic and simple algorithm to support optimization based application tasks such as optimal scheduling, optimal design, and model calibration. The paper proposes such an algorithm together with the results of numerical experiments. The formulation is given for the optimal scheduling problem but the same approach can be used for the design tasks. A general optimization approach for water network analysis is presented. It can handle networks of any structure without making presumptions about the network peculiarities. The method uses the augmented Lagrangean and exploits the special structure of the optimization problem. The important stage of the problem solving is automatic network simplification which allows the optimization of large networks. The discrete solution is close to the continuous optimum and can be found by using a version of the branch and bound method