Modelling of service reservoirs

Abstract

Service reservoirs were built to provide the dual function of balancing supply with demand and provision of adequate head to maintain pressure throughout the distribution network. Changing demographics in the UK and reducing leakage have led to significant increases in water age and hence increased risk of poor water quality. Computational fluid mechanics has been used to study the behaviour of a range of service reservoirs with a rectangular plan form. Detailed analysis of flow distribution and water age suggests that tanks with horizontal inlets are better mixed when compared with vertical top water level inlets. With increasing length to width ratio, the flow characteristics of tanks with vertical inlets increasingly resemble plug flow. A new multi-channel reactor model was developed to model the recirculations in service reservoirs. This simple model can be used to characterise the flow characteristics of service reservoirs from tracer test results.