Transient analysis of the uniformly distributed water demand

Abstract

Transient flow generated in pipe networks by uniformly distributed demands (UDDs) is analyzed. An original numerical algorithm based on the Method of Characteristics (MOC) is shown, which allows including the pressure−insensitive UDD’s approach at the pipe internal nodes without modifying its original discretization. The results delivered by the UDD’s approach are compared with the approach that  distributes 50% of the total water demand in the pipe’s upstream and downstream ends. The general conclusion is that the UDD’s approach is useful to know the pipe transient behaviour when every one of its internal nodes have a water demand, although its formulation is preliminary and it requires some extensions that allow it to approach the problem in more suitable way.