Planning, designing and performance evaluation of gravity based water distribution network - a case study

Abstract

Water distribution network system is an essential component of an urban town planning. Engineers can use available public domain software, Environmental Protection Agency Network (EPANET), which runs hydraulic simulations to design a minimal cost Water Distribution Network (WDN) system. National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) Surathkal campus was selected as study area which is located at Srinivasanagar, Surathkal in Dakshina Kannada District of Karnataka State, 22 kms North of Mangalore. The area to be served is 300 acres. The water demand at the end of design period of 20 years would be around 12 lakh liters per day for the NITK campus. Pertinent information and data required for the design was gathered for analysis. Owing to the increasing water demand in the future, the capacities of the existing distribution network would be insufficient to provide adequate supply of water to the whole campus. The existing water supply is inadequate and the details of current WDN system are not available with NITK authorities. This necessitates augmentation of water supply by rehabilitating the existing systems and expansion of the system to meet the future requirements. The total campus area has been divided into 4 water supply distribution system zones. Computer aided design has been adopted for the design of distribution network for various distribution zones. The required data were provided and analyzed for each nodal point (junction) as well as for each pipeline. The analysis ensured that, sufficient supply of water to each building in all zones was satisfied with minimum required pressure and head. © 2012 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY. All rights reserved.