SIMULATION OF NEGATIVE PRESSURE WAVE PROPAGATION IN WATER PIPE NETWORK

Subject: factors such as pipe wall roughness, mechanical properties of pipe materials, physical properties of water affect the pressure surge in the water supply pipes. These factors make it difficult to analyze the transient problem of pressure evolution using simple programming language, especially in the studies that consider only the magnitude of the positive pressure surge with the negative pressure phase being neglected. Research objectives: determine the magnitude of the negative pressure in the pipes on the experimental model. The propagation distance of the negative pressure wave will be simulated by the valve closure scenarios with the help of the HAMMER software and it is compared with an experimental model to verify the quality the results. Materials and methods: academic version of the Bentley HAMMER software is used to simulate the pressure surge wave propagation due to closure of the valve in water supply pipe network. The method of characteristics is used to solve the governing equations of transient process of pressure change in the pipeline. This method is implemented in the HAMMER software to calculate the pressure surge value in the pipes. Results: the method has been applied for water pipe networks of experimental model, the results show the affected area of negative pressure wave from valve closure and thereby we assess the largest negative pressure that may appear in water supply pipes. Conclusions: the experiment simulates the water pipe network with a consumption node for various valve closure scenarios to determine possibility of appearance of maximum negative pressure value in the pipes. Determination of these values in real-life network is relatively costly and time-consuming but nevertheless necessary for identification of the risk of pipe failure, and therefore, this paper proposes using the simulation model by the HAMMER software. Initial calibration of the model combined with the software simulation results and with the model of experiment showed the differences in confidence intervals using a model that created valve closure scenarios