Reliability of water distribution networks due to pumps failure: comparison of VSP and SSP application

Abstract. Reliability is an important indicator to ensure the operation of Water Distribution Networks (WDNs). To optimize the operation of WDN, it is necessary to incorporate the reliability of active components (such as pumps and tanks) besides the reliability of pipes. In this research, a concept is suggested to calculate the reliability of WDNs' pumping stations. A computer code is provided in Visual Basic and is linked to EPANET2.0. To evaluate the proposed methodology a real WDN near the city of Tehran is considered. According to the obtained results, it is concluded that by increasing the demand of the WDN during a day, the reliability of pumps decrease. Therefore, it seems that decision-making is necessary if high demand hours are considered, in order to increase the reliability of the system. On the other hand, it is observed in this research that using variable speed pumps not only reduces the energy cost of the network, but also the reliability of the pumping stations with variable speed pumps is higher than single speed pumps. Therefore, using VSP is highly recommended in WDNs.