Contaminant Detection in Urban Water Distribution Networks Using Chlorine Measurements

Abstract

Abstract. In this work we present a contamination detection methodology for water distribution networks. The proposed detection method is based on chlorine sensor measurements, which are compare to certain computed upper and lower periodic bounds. The bounds are computed using randomized simulations aimed at capturing the variations in chlorine concentration due to the significant uncertainty in the water demand patterns, average nodal consumptions, roughness parameters and reaction coefficients. The proposed method is applied to a set of high-impact contamination fault scenarios using a benchmark distribution network, for which on-line chlorine concentration sensors are assumed to have been installed at certain locations following an optimization procedure. The results indicate that by using the periodic bounds computed from the randomized simulations, for the proposed benchmark, contamination events are detected within reasonable time.