AUTOMATICAL VERIFICATION OF THE OPERATION
OF DRINKABLE WATER AQUEDUCT NETWORKS
SUMMARY
The procedure which is the subject
of the present memoir allows us to achieve two ambitious goals:
real understanding of the working aqueduct system, with all the
consequent advantages, and a constant check of the operation of
the system, which makes the supply of drinkable water very safe,
and prevents and signals anomalies such as losses and illegal
withdrawing of water from the pipes or the reservoirs, wrong usage
of the machinery, etc.
We deal with the following subjects, especially from the point
of view of their practical achievment:
- the idraulic scheme of the network, whicch is the most important
part of the mathematical verrification, since this verification
must include all elements which form the network - from pipes
to reservoirs to all electro-hydraulic machinery. We present the
drawbacks that can originate from the simplification of the scheme
and the corrections to be made;
- calculation of instant flowrates deliverred to the users by each
node. Being basic in the verification, they can change the final
result of all working process. We show which connections should
be made with the base of all operating data of the aqueduct, especially
with those that show the amount of water consumed by each user;
- calculation of real friction factor of tthe pipes;
- decision, to be taken automatically, aboout calculation stages
and methods, resulting from the real usage of the network and
from the flowrate required by the users;
- measurement of all hydraulic quantities which interest the aqueduct,
such as flowrates and head of the pumping stations, head in the
pipes of the network, upstream and downstream all hydraulic machinery,
such as pumps, reduction valvs, etc., level in reservoirs, etc.
- applications for automatic input of dataa, calculations (network
looped considered in steady flow) and output of the results;
- comparison between the results of calcullations and real data;
- start of an alarm when operating anomaliies occur. The system
would show where any failures, losses or operation anomalies occur;
- print of charts, plans and tables about the state of the network
and operating data, both detailed and summarized.
In the memoir we draw conclusions about the configuration that
the global computer-based system for the managment of aqueduct
networks should have, especially to integrate all the functions:
- administrative ones, which would providee flowrate data, necessary
for mathematical verification;
- remote control and check systems, which would transmit to the
main computer the real operating data to be compared with calculated
ones;
- the area assigned to the automatic checkk we described, which
would provide the technical area with the necessary information
about the operation of the network and the administration with
general statistical data.
This organization would require a great economic effort, that
could be reduced by creating an open system with several sub-systems
which can be reached through a computer-based network, wherever
they are located. This way, the system could be used by small
aqueducts as well, assuming they install apposite peripherals
connected to the centre.
The last porposal in the memoir, but certainly no last for the
importance of the results that can be achieved, is the one regarding
the connection of the global computer-based network to the Internet,
which would allow queries, decisions and operations with the machines
in the plants or in the aqueduct network to be made from any of
the offices, or even from home or from any computer connected
to the Internet.