Effects of Non-Zero Minimum Pressure Heads in Non-iterative Application of EPANET 2 in Pressure-Dependent Volume-Driven Analysis of Water Distribution Networks

While analysing a real network, the assumption of zero minimum pressure head as the elevation of demand node may lead to unrealistic results as some residual pressure is necessary to derive any outflow at the node. A more realistic minimum pressure head plays an important role for analysis of an existing or proposed network. The present study extends a novel method of pressure-dependent volume driven-analysis by investigating the effects of realistic minimum pressure heads. The novelty of the proposed method is to evaluate the practical impact of the zero minimum pressure head assumption under pressure-deficient condition in water distribution networks considering pipe isolation, fire demand, and altering total reservoir heads. The results obtained from the present method are compared with the results based on the more optimistic traditional assumption of zero minimum residual pressure-head. It is observed that time to fill the storage tanks under both normal and pressure-deficient conditions for non-zero minimum pressure head is higher. All the simulations were performed using graphical user interface of EPANET 2. Thus, the proposed approach can be used readily by researchers and practitioners without requiring any additional computational codes development.