OPTIMAL OPERATION OF RRWSS

摘要

Most of the developing countries in the world own and operate intermittent water distribution systems. In such systems, treated water is pumped into Overhead Service Reservoirs (OSRs) from where it is distributed to consumers by the distribution pipes. Due to reasons such as insufficient water, leaks in the systems, etc., the consumers are provided water only for a few hours in a day. The regions in the distribution network that are to be supplied together and the time for which these supplies are to be made are the decision of the utility providers. These decisions directly influence the amount of water supplied to consumers and the effort the valve men need to put in to realize the supply policy. Assuming that the regions to be supplied together and the durations of supply are known a priori, we solve the problem of sequencing these supplies so as to minimize the valve switches. This not only reduces the effort for the valve men, but also ensures that the consumers have their supply hours pooled together to the maximum extent possible. An integer linear program is formulated and solved after mapping it into the popidar travelling salesman problem. Further, the problem is also shown to obey the triangle inequality and hence the applicability of an approximation algorithm is also discussed.