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Sharif, Muhammad Nadeem

University of British Columbia

A water distribution system (WDS) is the most expensive and energy-intensive component of a water supply system. Maintaining acceptable water quality (WQ) and adequate pressure with minimum energy use is important in drinking water management. At the very least, water utilities must maintain a certain residual chlorine level to inactivate the pathogens and minimize human health risks. In terms of energy use, inefficient pump scheduling is a common problem identified in water distribution, leading to high energy costs. Due to increasing urbanization, population growth, high energy costs, and related greenhouse gas emissions, there is an increasing need to improve WQ and minimize energy usage simultaneously. Thus, leading to the development of sustainable water management strategies for large WDS. The optimization in the context of WQ and energy usage for large WDS alone is a challenging task. Until now, no established solution is available, as most of the past studies to find an optimal solution were either having a compromised WQ or unable to deal with the increasing energy demands of a large WDS. This research developed an integrated WQ and energy use optimization framework for an existing large WDS. At first, the water quality index and risk-based fuzzy failure modes effect analysis methods were applied to assess and optimize WQ. Later, optimal pump scheduling was identified to minimize energy use by employing a mixed integer goal programming model. In the last phase, both hydraulics and WQ performances were evaluated by developing a unique optimization approach. The proposed framework was demonstrated using a WDS in Al-Khobar (a large-sized city in Saudi Arabia). The case study results reflected the merits of the developed framework as ~20% energy cost reduction was obtained. Similarly, the use of the proposed optimization framework predicted > 40% WQ improvement. The proposed framework is flexible and can be applied to WDS of different sizes. It can assist water utilities in achieving higher performance with minimal energy use.

Text

2022-02-23

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/80868

Mechanical Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/