Analysis of the segment graph of water distribution networks

Abstract

One of the basic infrastructures of every settlement is the water distribution system, which provides clean and potable water for both private houses, industrial consumers and institution establishments. The operational robustness and vulnerabilities of these networks is an essential issue, both for the quality of life and for the preservation of the environment. Even with frequent and careful maintenance, unintentional pipe bursts might occur, and during the reparation time, the damaged section must be isolated hydraulically from the main body of the water distribution network. Due to the size and complexity of these networks, it might not be trivial how to isolate the burst section, especially if one wishes to minimize the impact on the overall system. This paper presents an algorithmic method that is capable of creating isolation plans for real-life networks in a computationally efficient way, based on the graph properties of the network. Besides this segmentation plan, the topological behavior of the structural graph properties was analyzed with the help of the complex network theory to create a method for the quantitative topology based categorization of the water distribution networks.