Pressure zones are important but can be difficult to understand. OpenFlow WaterGEMS and OpenFlows WaterCAD makes creating and managing pressure zones easy.

In the blog A Multi-Species Decay Model to Support Cost-Effective Chlorination in Distribution Systems, a cost-effective chlorination strategy is defined as the least-cost combination of doses (locations and rates) that achieves effective chlorination for a given stable flow regime and water temperature. Searching for such a strategy requires extended-period simulations for many dosing location and rate combinations.

Water utilities are required to achieve effective chlorination by maintaining a detectable free chlorine concentration to the system extremities. The initial dose required to inactivate pathogens may subsequently completely react with chemical contaminants remaining after treatment but before the water reaches these extremities. Then, either the initial dose must be increased, or booster doses are required at intermediate locations.

Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs) are short bursts of electromagnetic radiation. While small EMPs can occur normally, large EMPs can interfere with or even destroy electric power supplies and electronic equipment. EMPs can occur naturally from solar flares or lightening, or they can be created by human threat actors. They can be produced by high and low-altitude nuclear weapons; geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) caused by coronal mass ejections; and by small portable devices employed to produce electromagnetic interference (IEMI).

Most hydraulic engineers would admit that the Darcy-Weisbach equation is the most theoretically correct equation for head loss in pipe flow. It is based on a force balance between the driving forces of pressure and gravity, offset by head loss and can be applied to any Newtonian fluid. It’s pretty elegant looking.

OpenFlows WaterGEMS offers a set of features that that make water network design easier, including an unmatched platform interoperability (CAD & GIS) and Scenario Management tools.

Pretty much all well-run water utilities periodically develop a master plan. The plan looks out 20, 30, 40 years and tries to layout development in source, treatment, and distribution systems. Based on the best available demand forecast, pipes, tanks, and pumps are laid out to evolve the system efficiently.

In most water systems, the tank water levels “float on the system” (orange system in the profile below). The HGL in the tank is the same as the nominal hydraulic grade in the system.