An Improved Genetic Algorithm for Optimal Layout of Flow Meters and Valves in Water Network Partitioning

Abstract

The paradigm of “divide and conquer” has been well used in Water Distribution Systems (WDSs) zoning planning in recent years. Indeed, Water Network Partitioning (WNP) has played an irreplaceable role in leakage control and pressure management; meanwhile it also has certain drawbacks, such as reduction of the supply reliability of the pipe network system and increased terminal dead water, as a result of the closure of the pipe section. In this paper, an improvement is made to the method proposed by Di Nardo et al. (2013) for optimal location of flow meters and valves. Three improvements to the genetic algorithm are proposed in this work for better and faster optimization in the dividing phase of WNP: preliminary hydraulic analysis which reduces the number of decision variables; modifications to the crossover mechanism to protect the superior individuals in the later stage; and boundary pipe grouping and mutation based on the pipe importance. The objective function considers the master–subordinate relationship when minimizing the number of flow meters and the difference of hydraulic state compared to original WDS. Another objective function of minimizing the deterioration of water quality compared to original WDS is also evaluated. The proposed method is applied for the WNP in a real WDS. Results show that it plays an effective role in the optimization of layout of the flow meters and valves in WNP.

Advances in Modeling and Management of Urban Water Networks

“…In the field of WDSs, all works are numerical analyses, though most of them, i.e., [38][39][40]43,44], present models calibrated on the basis of experimental data. The methodologies adopted are multi-faceted, ranging from physically based modelling, [40,41,44,45], to GIS algorithms, [42], data-driven techniques, [38,39,43], graph-theory, [43], and optimization algorithms, [38,41,45].…”

“…Shao et al [45] present a novel methodology to be used in the context of WDS partitioning, which is a management practice beneficial for consumption monitoring and leakage mitigation. Their methodology operates by identifying the optimal locations of flow meters and valves to separate the DMAs by means of an improved genetic algorithm, applied for minimizing the number of installed flow meters and the behavioral variations of the WDS in terms of hydraulics and water quality, in comparison with the unpartitioned WDS.…”

Water Network Partitioning into District Metered Areas: A State-Of-The-Art Review

“…For a large and complex network, it is not easy to decide how many flow meters should be positioned among boundary pipes due to the trade-offs between hydraulic performance and investment cost. To deal with this problem, Shao et al [97] proposed a function that converted a dual-objective problem (i.e., hydraulic performance and cost) to a single-objective problem by considering the master-subordinate relationship of the two objective functions, which improved the computational efficiency.…”

“…The GA [101] has been widely implemented by Di Nardo et al [6,47,75,91,95]. Meanwhile, Shao et al [97] improved the GA for faster and superior layout of flow meters and valves by modifying crossover and mutation mechanisms. In addition, the simulated annealing algorithm was presented by Gomes et al [61,99,102].…”

Sectorization for Water Distribution Systems with Multiple Sources: A Performance Indices Comparison

“…Several alternatives for these indicators were used in the literature: resilience index [8,22,23], background leakages [16], number of flow observations [12,16] in addition of hydraulic indicators as water age, entropy [8], and dissipated power [5] (see ref. [24] for an improvement of this method). Other frameworks based on the concept of modularity propose the use of fast-greedy partitioning algorithm for creating DMAs through information encoded by pipe weights [25].…”