Abstract:
As a preliminary important phase for a hydraulic network analysis
procedure, loops identification process is studied in this paper by presenting an
automated algorithm to select a set of independent loops for the network equilibrium. Through the presented study, the hydraulic network is modeled as an undirected graph edges-vertices. Also, to take into consideration the mechanical
characteristics of the network, weights are assigned to pipes based on their
hydraulic resistances. The assigned weights are taken as a selection criterion for
loops identification. A numerical code under Matlab environment is generated and
the established framework is tested on a set of real case networks. The obtained
results are compared to those issued from previous researchers. Thus, the framework has proved its efficiency in identifying a set of independent loops even for
complex network topologies. The mutual independence of the obtained loops is
verified which allows to use the presented algorithm to build a general automated
framework for water distribution network analysis.
