Equilibrating Pressure with Auto-Control Valve in Water Distribution Networks

This paper probes into the feasibility of equilibrating pressure of water distribution network through (using auto-control valves) in theory and in the economy. An optimal valve control model is designed to minimize the sum of squares of residual pressure in the network. Such an analog simulation has been performed on the year 2003 programming network of a certain littoral district in North China, through which this paper confirms that it is feasible to equilibrate pressure with auto-control valves in theory. The research work has brought about a discovery of applicable conditions of valves in economic feasibility, which avoids a great economic loss due to the wild use of auto-control valve. In addition, simulated annealing algorithm is applied to optimize valve settings and shown to identify global optimum or near-optimum.