EPANET Program Methodology
CHAPTER 6 EPANET Program Methodology Continued global growth has placed increasing demand upon existing water distribution systems. This growth has fueled the increasing need to analyze existing and design new water distribution systems. In addition, recent concern and awareness about the safety of our drinking water has raised other questions about water quality of existing and proposed municipal water distribution systems. MIKE NET can be used to simulate existing and proposed water distribution systems. It can analyze the performance of the system and can be used to design system components to meet distribution requirements. In addition, it can perform water quality modeling, determining the age of water, performing source tracking, finding the fate of a dissolved substance, or determining substance growth or decay. This chapter describes the EPANET analysis program that MIKE NET uses to perform its water distribution network analysis. The program’s theoretical basis, its capabilities, and ways of utilizing the program for analyzing water distribution networks is discussed. 6.1 Overview The EPANET computer model used for water distribution network analysis is composed of two parts: (1) the input data file and (2) the EPANET computer program. The data file defines the characteristics of the pipes, the nodes (ends of the pipe), and the control components (such as pumps and valves) in the pipe network. The computer program solves the nonlinear energy equations and linear mass equations for pressures at nodes and flowrates in pipes. EPANET Input Data File The EPANET input data file, created automatically by MIKE NET, includes descriptions of the physical characteristics of pipes and nodes, and the connectivity of the pipes in a pipe network system.
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