Beyond trial and error: improving the management of intermittently-operated water distribution networks

超越反复试验：改善间歇性运行的供水网络的管理

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-04969
• 负责人: Meyer, David
• 金额: $ 1.89万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=737982
• 关键词: Beyond; trial; error; improving; management

Safe tap water is easily taken for granted. Yet Flint, Michigan and Walkerton, Ontario point to the devastating consequences of unsafe and unreliable piped water. The long-term vision of the proposed research program is to improve piped water's safety, reliability, and equity by creating better ways of managing piped water networks. The research will begin by focusing on the least reliable water networks: networks that are not always filled with pressurized water. In India, for example, utilities supply water for an average of only four hours per day! Globally, such intermittent water supplies serve one billion people (21% of piped water users) and cause 17 million infections annually. Piped water networks behave differently when they operate intermittently. Intermittent operations cause pipes to drain and refill frequently and intermittent operations prevent some customers from getting enough water. These differences make managing intermittent water supplies difficult and limit the usefulness of tools designed for managing continuously-operated networks. Accordingly, most utilities manage intermittent water supplies through trial and error. But the water supplies of one billion people should not be managed by trial and error. Three short-term objectives are, therefore, proposed: First, increase the percent of water utilities that use models (instead of trial and error) to manage intermittent systems. Existing academic models of intermittent water supplies have the potential to help manage systems, yet are unused by utilities. The proposed work will help utilities choose and use the most appropriate model for their network. Second, enable utilities to intermittently supply customers with similar volumes of water. Determining the volume of water that a customer gets in an intermittent system with academic models requires expensive-to-gather details about each pipe in that system. Instead, this work will create a simpler model of how equitably water is distributed within an intermittent system. The simpler model will not require detailed pipe information and will be cheaper for utilities to use. Third, reduce the burst pipes and wasted energy caused by air trapped in water networks. Filling water pipes can trap pockets of air, which can cause pressure spikes and block the flow of water in continuously- and intermittently-operated networks. Existing models of air in water pipes only work for simple networks. This work will create the first model of trapped air in a utility-sized network. Impact: This research will improve our understanding of how air and water flow through pipes and allow water utilities to increase their efficiency and reliability. One billion people stand to benefit from the increased reliability of intermittent water supplies. Moreover, Canada's water sector will benefit from better ways of managing trapped air and from HQP with the practical and theoretical skills needed to keep our piped water safe and reliable.

安全的自来水很容易被视为理所当然。然而，密歇根州弗林特和安大略省沃克顿指出了不安全和不可靠的自来水带来的毁灭性后果。拟议研究计划的长期愿景是通过创建更好的管道水网络管理方法来提高管道水的安全性、可靠性和公平性。 该研究将首先关注最不可靠的供水网络：并不总是充满加压水的网络。例如，在印度，公用事业公司平均每天只供水四个小时！在全球范围内，这种间歇性供水服务了 10 亿人（占自来水用户的 21%），每年导致 1700 万人感染。管道供水网络在间歇性运行时的表现有所不同。间歇性操作会导致管道频繁排水和补水，并且间歇性操作会导致一些客户无法获得足够的水。这些差异使得管理间歇性供水变得困难，并限制了用于管理连续运行网络的工具的实用性。因此，大多数公用事业公司通过反复试验来管理间歇性供水。但十亿人的供水不应该通过反复试验来管理。因此，提出了三个短期目标：首先，增加使用模型（而不是反复试验）来管理间歇性系统的自来水公司的百分比。现有的间歇性供水学术模型有潜力帮助管理系统，但尚未被公用事业公司使用。拟议的工作将帮助公用事业公司选择和使用最适合其网络的模型。其次，使公用事业公司能够间歇性地向客户提供类似数量的水。使用学术模型确定客户在间歇性系统中获得的水量需要花费昂贵的成本来收集该系统中每个管道的详细信息。相反，这项工作将创建一个更简单的模型，用于说明如何在间歇性系统内公平地分配水。更简单的模型不需要详细的管道信息，并且对于公用事业公司来说使用起来更便宜。 第三，减少水管中滞留空气造成的管道爆裂和能源浪费。加注的水管可能会滞留空气，从而导致压力峰值并阻塞连续和间歇运行的网络中的水流。现有的水管空气模型仅适用于简单的网络。这项工作将在公用事业规模的网络中创建第一个滞留空气模型。 影响：这项研究将增进我们对空气和水如何流经管道的理解，并使自来水公司提高其效率和可靠性。十亿人将从间歇性供水可靠性的提高中受益。此外，加拿大的水务部门将受益于更好的滞留空气管理方法，以及 HQP 提供的实践和理论技能，以确保我们的管道水安全可靠。