Toward model-based control of non-linear hydraulic networks

Abstract

Water leakage is an important component of water loss. Many methods have emerged from urban water supply systems (WSSs) for leakage control, but it still remains a challenge in many countries. Pressure management is an effective way to reduce the leakage in a system. It can also reduce the power consumption. To have a better understanding of leakage in WSSs, to control pressure and leakage effectively, and for optimal design of WSSs, suitable modeling is an important prerequisite. In this paper a model with the main objective of pressure control and consequently leakage reduction is presented. Following an analogy to electric circuits, first the mathematical expression for pressure drop over each component of the pipe network (WSS) such as pipes, pumps, valves and water towers is presented. Then the network model is derived based on the circuit theory and subsequently used for pressure management in the system. A suitable projection is used to reduce the state vector and to express the model in standard state-space form.