Pressure measurements with valve-induced transient flow in water pipelines

Abstract

Pressure measurements provide valuable insights for managing water supply systems by tracking time-dependent hydraulic transients. In this study, we report on two pressure-monitoring issues – sampling location and sampling interval – by analyzing a valve-induced transient event that was not recorded in the 1-min timestamp pressure generated by the existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system of a real water transmission line in the southern part of Korea. Field measurement data show that the measured pressure magnitude is influenced by the sampling location, which depends on pipe connectivity and distance from automatic control valve, and by the sampling interval, which is sensitive to network size for wave propagation. Based on the findings of the field experiments, a pressure-measurement method is proposed by employing numerical transient simulation and spectral analysis of pressure waves.

Keywords::

• hydraulic transient
• valve-induced flow
• pressure measurement
• water supply system
• SCADA
• transient analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. T.M. Walski at Bentley Systems for his meticulous review of the SCADA system.

Funding

This work was supported by the Korea Ministry of Environment's Eco-innovation program [project no. GT-11-G-02-001-6].