New Methodology for Losses Determination in Water Distribution Networks

Abstract

The problems associated with water loss are numerous. High real losses indirectly require water suppliers to extract, treat, and transport greater volumes of water than their customer demand requires. The additional energy needed for treatment and transport taxes energy-generating capabilities which often rely upon large quantities of water in their process. Leaks, bursts, and overflows often cause considerable damage and inflate liability for the supplier.The main objective of the current research is to find the direct relationship between the losses in water distribution networks and the residual chlorine. The experimental program is designed to monitor the losses in water distribution networks and how it can be related to the residual chlorine in a certain part of an existing network. For this purpose, a certain measurements on a part of a water network in Nasr-City, Cairo, Egypt have been made to find residual chlorine relationship with time and pipelines lengths and amount of leakage. The field measurements of both the rate of flow and the value of the residual chlorine at different locations and at consecutive intervals of time were carried out through three steps (runs). The first run for a single pipeline, the second step for three pipelines while the third run for the whole part of the network (nine pipelines).Two main equations are concluded from this field measurements and analysis. Equation (1) represents the relationship between residual chlorine, time and pipeline length, and equation (2) represents the relationship between residual chlorine and leakage with pipeline lengths. The results from these equations verification showed that, deviation percent between field measurements and the application of the equations is minor and within allowable rate.