Experimental Analysis of Hydraulic Solver Convergence with Genetic Algorithms
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 5
Abstract
A procedure for the experimental convergence evaluation of a hydraulic-network solver is proposed, based on using genetic algorithms to search for network parameter values that maximize the number of iterations of the hydraulic-network solver under test. The efficiency of the method is demonstrated by the example of convergence evaluation for the EPANET hydraulic simulator. Examples of a pipe network and of combinations of parameter values for which the static solver of the simulator fails to converge in a reasonable number of iterations are given. The features of the EPANET 2.00.12 solver responsible for loss of convergence are discussed. New criteria for the automatic start of solution damping aimed at improving the convergence of the solver are proposed. The better convergence of the EPANET solver modified in accordance with these criteria is confirmed by the random and the proposed search-based testing method.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) of Mexico under Project No. UNSPECIFIED84081.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 5 • May 2010
Pages: 331 - 335
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 18, 2008
Accepted: Oct 19, 2009
Published online: Nov 9, 2009
Published in print: May 2010
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