The conventional solution to urban drainage problems employs a system with a certain storage, transport and treatment capacity. The limited efficiency of this solution is due to the lack in flexibility in operating the system under dynamic loading. Optimal systems performance can only be achieved by means of real time control (RTC) of the system. The potential of RTC should be considered not only after the system has been constructed, but in the design phase of the system as well, as it will influence the required capacities of the system elements. A model is presented that can be used to assess this potential on the basis of simulation of time series of rain events. For a simple fictitious system it is shown that by means of RTC considerable savings can be achieved. These are expressed in terms of extra storage or discharge capacity that would have been required in an uncontrolled system to reach the same overflow volume as when RTC is applied. Besides it is demonstrated that currently monitored process data provide sufficient information to operate the system in a proper way. Inflow forecasts may be useful but they are not absolutely necessary to derive a suitable operation strategy.
The LOCUS modelling package, which has been designed to assess the performance of an urban drainage system that is controlled in real time is presented. Besides the simulation of 'optimal' controlled systems, LOCUS offers the possibility to simulate local (or static) controlled systems as well (i.e. the present way of operation of most urban drainage systems). Since an identical system description is used in both cases, the difference between the results is only due to the way the system is operated and hence the effects of real time control can be quantified by comparing the results. The use of the model is illustrated by a simple example, which shows that it is worth investigating the potential of real time control before constructing extra storage in the system. For a small fictitious system with limited storage capacity at the downstream section it is shown that this potential is comparable to increasing the storage capacity by 1.5 mm at this particular section.
A control simulation model, called LOCUS, is used to investigate the effects of spatially distributed rain and the possibilities to benefit from this phenomenon by means of real time control. The study is undertaken for a catchment in Copenhagen, where rainfall is measured with a network of 8 rain gauges. Simulation of a single rain event, which is assumed to be homogeneous, i.e. using one rain gauge for the whole catchment, leads to large over- and underestimates of the systems output variables. Therefore, when analyzing a single event the highest possible degree of rainfall information may be desired. Time-series simulations are performed for both an uncontrolled and a controlled system. It is shown that from a statistical point of view, rainfall distribution is NOT significant concerning the probability of occurrence of an overflow. The main contributing factor to the potential of real time control, concerning minimizing overflows, is to be found in the system itself, i.e. the distribution of available storage and discharge capacity. When other operational objectives are involved, e.g., to minimize peak flows to the treatment plant, rainfall distribution may be an important factor.
The potential of Real Time Control (RTC) to reduce the overflow volume from a combined sewer system has been investigated for a catchment in Copenhagen, named Strandvaenget. The results have been compared with the alternative of increasing the storage volume of the system. The RTC strategy has been derived using a mathematical optimization and a rule based method. As the only objective is to reduce the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO), the developed rule based control algorithm can achieve almost the same results as the optimization method. From the results of time series calculations, it can be concluded that the introduction of RTC appears very promising when the mean yearly CSO volume has to be reduced. In this research, the potential of RTC is investigated for an increasing amount of storage volume and for an increasing demand for reduction of CSO volume.
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