A comprehensive framework to evaluate hydraulic and water quality impacts of pipe breaks on water distribution systems

Abstract

Pipe breaks have significant impacts on the hydraulic and water quality performance of water distribution systems (WDSs). Therefore, it is important to evaluate these impacts for developing effective strategies to ultimately minimize the consequences of these events. However, there has been surprisingly limited research focusing on impact evaluation for pipe breaks so far. To address this gap, this paper proposes a framework to comprehensively evaluate hydraulic and water quality impacts of pipe breaks on a WDS using six quantitative metrics. These metrics primarily focus on identifying (i) break outflow volume, (ii) water shortage, (iii) nodes with reduced service quality, (iv) pipes with affected pressures, (v) pipes with reversed flow directions, and (vi) pipes with significantly increased velocities, for each breaking event within a WDS. Statistical behaviors, spatial properties, and pipe rankings of metric results are analyzed to reveal the underlying characteristics of impacts induced by pipe breaks. We illustrate the proposed framework using three WDSs with different properties. Results show that impacts of pipe breaks not only vary with pipe diameters but are also significantly influenced by pipe locations, when the break occurs, and the specific metric considered. The proposed framework greatly enhances the fundamental understanding of the underlying properties of breaking impacts on the hydraulic and water quality of WDSs, as well as the ranking of pipes based on the consequences of breaks. Such understanding offers important guidance to develop effective pipe management, resource planning, and break restoration strategies to minimize the impacts of breaking events on WDSs.