Leakage reduction in water distribution networks applying simulated annealing

Abstract

Background leakages in water distribution networks produce unwanted effects such as water waste and deterioration of the network infrastructure. In this work, a two-stage methodology is proposed for the reduction of leakages by means of the control of nodal pressures. In the first stage, the design of the network sectorization is obtained by maximizing the modularity index. As a result, it is obtained the optimal location of the cuts for the installation of pressure reducing valves. In the second stage, the simulated annealing algorithm is used to minimize the resilience index of the network in order to optimize the operating parameters of the valves. As an example of the application of this methodology, an academic network is studied under two different scenarios of water demands, obtaining a reduction of more than 25% in the volume of leakages.