Component-holistic condition assessment of water distribution networks

The work presented herein presents an expanded methodology for imprinting the condition of an urban water distribution network (WDN). Even though the majority of past research efforts related to WDNs deal with water mains (WMs), only a small part of the research studies have considered house connections (HCs) in the analysis and very few researchers have examined how the failure of pipe fittings affect the network performance. Rehabilitation actions in a WDN related to any part of it, whether it is a pipe or a fitting, have a direct effect on the condition of the whole system. Moreover, in the overall cost of repairing a leakage, the cost of the failed unit is very small compared to the cost of the work to detect, localize and restore the problem. Thus, the effect of the fittings in the network's rehabilitation cost is equally as important as that of the pipelines. Therefore, a mathematical model simulating the overall WDN condition and targeting asset management of WDNs, which includes not only data on WMs but also data on fittings and HCs, is closer to reflecting the actual condition of the network.