Abstract
It is important to locate valves properly in a water distribution network in order to control the water pressure. This problem was hard and needed a large amount of time and a large amount of experienced designer's knowledge to be solved.
In this paper, a method for locating valves in designing the water distribution optimal pressure control systems is presented, by which the good location of valves is obtained systematically and simply. This method saves the time required in designing the control systems.
First, the valve location problem and the difficulty of solving it are discribed. Second, we discuss the relation between pressure controllability and valve location, considering the network connection and the water distribution network equations. We also study this problem based on the numerical experiment for a simple water distribution network. And we propose a method of valve location. Finally, this method is verified to be effective by experiments applying to the real water distribution network.
