A Performance Indicator for Wastewater Collection Systems

This paper introduces a methodology for performance assessment of wastewater collection systems, especially during critical operational situations such as storm water, pipe blockage and hydraulic overload. Two penalty curves are proposed to evaluate the depth and velocity of wastewater flow in each pipe, during different operational conditions. Then using a weighting function, performance of the system is evaluated. A test network is analyzed by the SewerCAD software and network performance indices are determined by the introduced methodology. The results show that indicator based on flow depth represents the hydraulic performance of the wastewater collection systems better than the pipe velocity. Application of these indices helps decision makers to manage wastewater collection systems realistically.