Implementing ΔQ Method to Accelerate the Optimization of Pressurized Pipe Networks

To optimize the design of a pressurized pipe network, large number of possible solutions needs to be examined. This paper explores the option to accelerate the computation using ΔQ hydraulic method. The ΔQ method is firstly used in a standard form, as stand-alone hydraulic solver inside the evaluation function. Second version was to use ΔQ method once to solve the initial network, and during optimization procedure, unknown flow corrections were added to list of other unknowns for optimization. The suggested approach was tested on New York City distribution network reconstruction example using standard genetic algorithms (GA).