WaterGEMS is a hydraulic modeling application that provides an easy-to-use environment to confidently analyze, design, and optimize water distribution systems. In this article we will understand the Darwin Designer tool in WaterGEMS. WaterGEMS With WaterGEMS you can perform: Hydraulic operations, Creation of water models from a different source of data, Results presentation, Automated tools to perform Fire Flow analysis, Flushing, Pipe Renewal Planner, Calibration, Design/Rehabilitation, and others. Moreover, WaterGEMS includes a standalone version and the possibility to work within other three platforms: MicroStation, Autodesk, the recent interoperability release with ArcGIS Pro, and ArcMap. Darwin Designer Among the automated tools, we have a tool called Darwin Designer. This tool allows us to evaluate design and rehabilitation strategies based on three objectives: minimization of costs, maximization of benefits, or multi-objectives. Additionally, we can enter restrictions, allowed pipe sizes and associated unit costs, to execute manual or automatic designs. Basically, it uses a genetic algorithm methodology. Firstly, this wizard helps you through the process to define a new design study, you can define a New Designer Study for an automated design or rehabilitation. Darwin Designer Welcome Menu Once you define a New Designer Study, and a New Design Event, you can go through

In a pipe network, all elements are connected such that changing anything at any location impacts the entire network. Adding a pipe in the far northwest part of the system affects flow in the far southeast part (minimally in many cases). The right way to model any pipe network is to include all elements that affect the behavior of the network.

They are nonlinear, partial differential equations which are about the worst kinds of equations to solve. About the only things that can make them worse are changes in state (e.g. steam condensing) or non-Newtonian fluids (e.g. mudflows). Numerous researchers have shown that it is impossible to arrive at a closed-form, analytical solution in the form v(r, φ, z) =… When people work with these equations these days, they almost always use numerical solutions. I heard a story once that Albert Einstein started his research in solving the Navier-Stokes equations but gave up because it was too difficult. He moved on to easy topics like quantum physics and relativity. I haven’t been able to verify this, but it makes for a good story.

The problem was that the people who developed the data underlying the GIS/CAD (I’ll call it GIS in this blog) used to build the model were not careful in how they laid out intersections. They would run the same pipe down several blocks without consideration of whether crossing pipes were interconnected. While we have tools in our model to clean up these issues (View > Network Navigator), it is best to avoid them from the start. Read Tom Walski’s blog and learn how to fix a model where the piping at intersections was poorly represented.

The exact right-of-way for a pipe or land acquisition for a tank or pump station is not generally considered in explicitly in master planning but can have a significant effect on costs. Costs can vary dramatically and are not simply a function of diameter. Over a reasonable range of pipe sizes, the effects of laying condition far outweigh the effect of pipe size in determining cost.

This blog series attempts to present some important considerations in system design that are important but generally are overlooked in schools. Experienced engineers will be familiar with these issues, but inexperienced engineers run into them frequently until they learn.

One of the most important inputs to transient analysis is the speed of the pressure wave (called celerity) moving through the pipes. The speed depends on the fluid properties and pipe properties and has a significant impact on the magnitude of the transient pressure wave and the speed at which it moves through the pipes.