Locating Leaks in Water Distribution Networks with Simulated Annealing and Graph Theory

This paper addresses the problem of locating leaks in water distribution networks. The approach presented here is based on steady-state modelling, supported by monitoring tank flow and pressure at strategic nodes. The selection of the pressure monitoring nodes is done applying graph theory concepts adapted to water distribution networks. Pressure monitoring data is then used to build an optimization problem: the objective function is the minimization of the differences between estimated and measured pressures at the monitoring points, the constraints are the common energy and mass conservation laws and the decision variables are the leak locations and flows. This optimization problem is solved by a simulated annealing algorithm presented in a previous work. The application of this approach in a set of case studies produced some encouraging results and this paper describes the complete procedure and draws some conclusions.