Canal Design by Dynamic Programming

This technical note presents an approach to irrigation and drainage canal-design procedure that uses dynamic programming where objective function and constraints are related to criteria used in canal design. The canal-design procedure is based on the principle of limiting velocities of water flow: minimum permissible velocity as a limit for sedimentation and maximum permissible velocity as a limit for erosion. The objective of the design is to determine the longitudinal slope ( s ) and bed width ( b ) of the canal in such a way that the total construction cost is minimum. This method is the first step in the development of an enhanced design. Application of the dynamic programming allows sophisticated improvements and corrections of the procedure.