Resilience Analysis in the Permanent Partitioning of a Water Distribution Network

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the suitability of compact resilience metrics for application to partitioned water distribution networks (WDNs). WDN partitioning represents a different test from the usual reliability tests performed in the scientific literature, in which the operation of the WDN is unperturbed, or marginally perturbed (e.g., by segment isolation or demand amplification). The creation of permanent district metering areas (DMAs), which is carried out through the simultaneous closure of numerous links, represents, instead, a larger and permanent perturbation that deserves special attention. In this analysis, two metrics, namely the Global Resilience Failure (GRF) and the energy efficiency indices, were compared in pressure-driven approach with WDN performance indicators. The results in a real WDN, which is partitioned in a growing number of DMAs, proved that both the GRF is more sensitive to the weaknesses arisen in the partitioning processes.