Calculation of Water Age Using Electrical Simulators

The average time water takes from the source to the consumer is referred to as the “water age.” It is a general indicator of water quality as it affects the disinfectant levels, microbial regrowth, and the contaminants’ buildup. So, water suppliers strive to balance water age and quality to provide safe and reliable drinking water. Hydraulic modeling is the most straightforward way to determine water age. Several hydraulic simulation packages are available in the public and commercial domains for calculating the water age. In recent years, several researchers have used electrical simulators for water distribution network (WDN) analysis. The use of electrical simulators for water quality analysis has not yet been reported in the literature. This study proposes a methodological approach for calculating the water age for WDN in an electrical simulator. In this method, the initial water ages in reservoirs are replaced with voltage sources, nodal demands with current sources, and pipes with a new element called a “pipe delay.” The value of pipe delay depends on the pipe parameters (e.g., length and diameter) and flow through the pipe. The applicability of the freely downloadable electrical simulator, QucsStudio, to calculate water age through Verilog-A code is demonstrated for several pipe networks. The results obtained from the hydraulic simulator, EPANET, are taken as benchmarks to verify the accuracy of the proposed methodology. The electrical simulator is shown to provide highly accurate results regarding water age at junctions.