CE 112 Project

Water Distribution System Modeling and

Design Using EPANET

Submitted by:
Collado, Xyruz
Sakandal, Alreen-Nadzrif

Submitted to:
Eugene C. HERRERA, D. Eng

September 30, 2019

Introduction
Water distribution system (WDS) is a hierarchical network of components (pumping
station, distribution storage, distribution piping), subcomponents (pumping, piping, tanks,
pipes, valves), and sub-components (pump, driver, power transmission, controls) but operates
as a system of independent components with a purpose of design and analysis to determine
how the system perform hydraulically under various demands and operation conditions. The
three major components of WDS are pumping stations, distribution storage, distribution
piping which has schematics shown below, Figure 1.

Figure 1. Water Distribution System Functional Components

The main goals of a water distribution network are (1) to supply the system’s users
with the amount of water demanded and (2) to supply this water with adequate pressure under
various loading conditions. In this project, it is expected for the researchers/engineers to be
able to apply the general concept of WDS together with hydraulics and fluid mechanics
theories to solve a particular problem experienced by the Water District (the problem will be
further discuss in the problem statement part) and proposed an appropriate and economical
design for the improvement of water supply services to their consumers. The system
modeling will be using the software EPANET for the convenience of the designer.

Problem Statement
A Water District is in need of your expert advice on how to improve water supply
services to their consumers in terms of providing the amount of water demanded with the
required pressures. The network schematic below (Figure 2) shows the layout of its Water
Distribution System with the transmission lines ranging between 50-300 mm. in diameter.
Water is supplied to consumers form a single groundwater-pumped well (Matubig) that is
designed to pump directly into the network. The system only has one (1) distribution storage
(Poblacion Tank) with a capacity of 380 m3. Existing system component (pipes, junctions,
tanks/reservoirs, and pumps) properties including junction base demand rates are already
incorporated in the given WDS model. If the required service transmission head is 30m,
provide your expert advice to the Water District. If it were to provide bulk water (150,000 m 3
per month) to its neighbor municipality (through Matubong Bulk junction), how will its WDS
set-up differ? Identify the following in your design:

(1) Location, capacity, elevation and operating water levels of additional storage
tanks/reservoirs if needed.
(2) Location, production rate, dynamic head and operation of additional pumping well
stations if needed. Use the connecting node elevation for defining the tank/reservoirs
elevation.
(3) Location, production rate, dynamic head and operation of additional booster pumps if
needed.
(4) Upgrade in transmission line diameter size for the entire network if unit head loss is to
be limited to 0.5 m/km only. Assume that the present pipe material is steel.
(5) Estimate the overall cost of the water supply system rehabilitation. Use provided
costing list.

Figure 2. Network Schematic

Materials and Methods
As mentioned above, the modeling of the system will be using the software EPANET.
It is a computer program that performs extended period simulation of hydraulic and water-
quality behavior within pressurized pipe networks. EPANET tracks the flow of water in each
pipe, the pressure at each node, the height of the water at each tank, the type of chemical
concentration, water age, source, tracing. The hydraulics and fluid mechanics
concepts/theories have already been programmed in this software: (1) computation of friction
head loss using different formulas, (2) include minor head loss for bends, fittings, etc., (3)
modeling of constant or variable speed pumps, (4) computation of pumping energy and cost,
(5) consideration of multiple demand categories at nodes.

In this particular WDS design project, EPANET is useful as it helps water utilities
maintain and improve the quality of water delivered to consumers: (1) conduct consumer
exposure assessments, (2) evaluate alternative strategies for improving water quality, such as
altering source use within multi-source systems, (3) modify pumping and tank filling/
emptying schedules to reduce water age, (4) plan cost-effective programs of targeted pipe
cleaning and replacement, (5) plan and improve a system’s hydraulic performance, (6) assist
with pipe, pump, and valve placement and sizing, (7) energy minimization.

The methods or process of design that will be applied in this particular problem using
EPANET will be, first, model selection. Then, network representation, calibration,
verification. Next is problem identification which are already stated in the problem statement
part, then model application, and finally, analysis where the final model in the said software
will be run to execute and display the results. After this process is the design part in which
the designer will consider the most appropriate and economical design that fits the problem in
the system. Iteration will be done to achieve this and will be mostly based on the decision
making skills and intuition of the designer with good reasoning and sound engineering. The
cost estimation will also be done (using excel calculations and the provided material cost) to
be able to anticipate the overall cost of the water supply system rehabilitation that the final
design requires and to be able to make judgment economically.

Scope and Limitation

The result that the analysis will be providing is only a 24-hour time frame, thus, the
analysis will not be covering the sustainability (futuristic concerns) of the design, i.e.
groundwater exhaustion or over-pumping of water in the groundwater.
Result and Discussion
The initial layout of the network of the given municipality Water Distribution System
is shown earlier, Figure 2. Initially, the system is composed of: (1) the transmission lines
(pipes) diameter ranging only from 50 mm to 300 mm, (2) only one distribution storage – 380
cubic meter capacity, (3) and a single groundwater-pumped well. The system given the initial
components resulted to a many junctions with negative pressure from 6 AM to 6 PM, shown
below.

Upon the inclusion to the system of an additional 150,000 cubic meter per month
(5000 CMD) demand from the neighboring municipality (via Matubong Bulk junction), the
EPANET analysis also resulted to many junctions with negative pressure from 2 AM to 10
PM, aside from this a new system problem incurred which is the excessive water flow on the
pump beyond its capacity. This means that the additional demand from the neighboring
municipality is just too much for the initial supply in the system to provide. The result of the
analysis is shown below.
 This also means that the system is in need of a new design in the components (pipes,
addition of tank/reservoir, and pumps) in order for the problems above to be solved. First, an
additional pumping well is placed connected to a junction (JU54). This location was used so
that the water supply is near the neighboring municipality and the cluster of junctions. A
60HP submersible motor pump running at 80% of its normal speed was used to extract the
groundwater. The new water distribution system set-up is shown below, Figure 3.
 Figure 3. New WDS Set-up

After the addition of the new pumping well, there is a dramatic increase on the overall
pressure of the system but the system still experience negative pressure from 2AM to 9PM.
Although in this design, the designer only touched the general components of the system,
thus, in order to furthermore increase the pressure and deal with headlosses problems, a new
method in the design is needed that will include the modification in more internal
components of the WDS which is the adjustment of a subcomponent, particularly the pipe
diameters. Using fluid mechanics concepts, the designer decided to use this method because
the headlosses in the pipelines are too big which inflicts the negative pressure in the junctions
and adjusting the pipe diameter is one way of resolving this kind of problem. The designer
made an iteration of design to reach the most appropriate diameters that are able to deal with
the large headlosses in the system. The iteration of design also enables to produce the most
economical design which is one of the objectives in this project.

Figure 4 below shows the initial diameters in the piping system of WDS. On the other
hand, Figure 5 shows the unit headlosses in the system which illustrates the failure of
complying with the requirement of 0.5 meter/km at peak-hour demand (8 AM).
Figure 4. System Pipe Diameters
 Figure 5. Unit Headlosses at Peak-Hour Demand (8 AM)

After the final design was obtained, Figure 6 below shows the new diameter sizes for
the new network while Figure 7 shows the improved headlosses of the system at the peak-
hour demand (8 AM).
Figure 6. New System Pipe Diameters
Figure 7. New Unit Headlosses at Peak-Hour Demand (8 AM)
 Figure 8. New Heads of the System at Peak-Hour Demand (8 AM)

As observed from Figure 6 and 7 which is the final design, all the unit headlosses are
below the required maximum unit headloss of 0.5m/km. One of the requirements as stated in
the problem statement part is the required service transmission head which is a minimum of
30 m. It can also be observed that in the final system design, the heads are all above 30 m,
thus, satisfying the requirement. The final design, as mentioned above, only includes
additional pumping well. The pump operates as shown below, Table 1.

Table 1. Pump Energy Report

 Figure 9. Program Analysis

Show above, Figure 9, shows that the final design produces no warnings/problems
within the Water Distribution System. The last assessment needed in this project is the
estimation of overall cost of the water supply system rehabilitation. This was iteratively done
using the provided material cost. The total cost computed is shown below, Table 2.

Table 2. Overall Cost Of The Water Supply System Rehabilitation

Conclusion
The initial system produces many junctions with negative pressure and the additional
neighboring municipality demand made it even worse. To mitigate this problem, addition of
ground water pump (connected to JU54) in the system was done to compensate the lack of
supply. The analysis focuses on the time where the demand is at peak. For the negative
pressures that still exist in the system due to the relatively large headloss, modification in the
pipe diameters was iteratively made. The final economical design was reached and totaled to
an overall cost of 67,307,214 pesos.

EPANET software is significant to the success of the Water Distribution System

design, thus, it is recommended for solving such problem.