Pulsed Demand Modeling for the Optimal Placement of Water Quality Sensors in Water Distribution Networks

This paper deals with the issue of the consistency of water distribution network (WDN) modeling concerning the nature of demand for the optimal water quality sensor placement. In this regard, a biobjective optimization for the sensor placement is carried out by minimizing the contamination extension or the contaminated population in the trade-off with the number of sensors installed, by considering two alternative demand modeling conditions, that is, smooth and pulsed demand, respectively. The real layout of the two Italian WDNs is considered for the application of the methodology. The results show that for a given placement of sensors, the contamination extension always increases when the pulsed demand is considered. Furthermore, optimal sensor positions are affected by the pulsed demand especially in the case of highly looped WDN layouts and when the extent of contamination is used as objective function.