Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 28TH SEPTEMBER - 4TH OCTOBER 2018 | 23 Operations & Assets can't if you're trying to tackle problems indi- vidually," he says. Over the past five years Bristol Water has been involved in a project with Imperial Col- lege London and valve manufacturer Cla-val. The ongoing initiative involves introducing the principle of adaptive and dynamically controlled network areas. Through the appli- cation of smart technology, the project aims to provide a more resilient and better per- forming network (see case study, right). Assessing the Underworld Collaboration between industry and aca- demia has also been key to the success of the Assessing the Underworld (ATU) initiative. Working with 59 stakeholders from across the industry, ATU was a follow-on from Map- ping the Underworld (MTU), which focused on mapping underground assets, pipes and cables. Subsequently, ATU looked at using some of the same technology explored in the MTU project, as well as new technologies, and ways they could be deployed differently to obtain condition information. "Basically," says Metje, "can we detect leaks, can we detect corrosion, can we identify issues with broken or overheating cables?" The project consisted of various work- streams including research into vibro-acous- tics, electromagnetic detection techniques and non-contact electrical resistivity. The research also focused on geotechnical and road infrastructure. Part of this work looked at trench reinstatement and current stand- ards for repairing and filling trenches, and what impact that has on road quality. "We said from the outset that if you put a trench in, you're also damaging and reduc- ing the life of the road itself because you're creating a flow path for water to go in. You've reduced the strength of the road and poten- tially the subsurface if you haven't com- pacted it well enough," explains Metje. The trench field trial was undertaken on campus at the University of Birmingham. The team looked at the impact of reinstat- ing a trench using the current BSI standard, but at two ends of the spectrum: the best you could do and the worst you could get away with under the standard. "We've had some interesting findings that show a poorly rein- stated trench which is still within the BSI standard would actually be a lot worse and would deteriorate the road quite signifi- cantly," claims Metje. "It is also likely to have an impact on the buried pipes which then in the longer term is likely to reduce the life of the buried asset." While the ATU research finished in May 2018, the team is now involved in various Creating resilient and dynamically adaptive water networks. I n the UK, water distribution networks (WDNs) have been sectorised into "static" discrete district meter areas (DMAs) mainly for leakage management. By installing kept-shut boundary valves to create DMAs, the redundancy of connectivity and supply within large interconnected networks is severely reduced, thereby affecting operational resilience, water quality, and energy losses. Although DMAs have contributed towards a step change in managing leakage over several decades, DMAs have introduced operational restrictions that affect both customers and utilities. New technologies and systems-based approaches are needed to improve operational resilience, hydraulic pressure and assets utilisation within WDNs during a time of escalating environmental, regulatory and finan- cial constraints. The project involves the next generation of intelligent water distribution networks that dynamically adapt their connectivity and hydraulic conditions to deliver a notable improvement of the 4Rs of: resilience for net- works: redundancy; reliability; resistance; and response and recovery. This is achieved by replacing the kept- shut boundary and control valves with multi-function self-powered automatic control valves, or multi-function network controllers (MFNCs). The MFNCs adaptively control the network connectivity and hydraulic condi- tions based on mathematical optimisation to switch between hydraulic states that are specific for pressure control, incident response, water quality control and leakage management. This work followed concepts used in communication networks, where "soware-defined networks" and physi- cal routers significantly improve the quality of service through dynamic connectivity and network adaptability. A demonstrator (field lab), operated by Bristol Water, was implemented in 2012 as a "playground" for the development and integration of modelling, optimisa- tion methods, and control technologies. The field lab includes three dynamically adaptive DMAs, 7900 cus- tomer connections and 59km of mains. The combined know how and experience of a util- ity, product manufacturer and a university working collaboratively has been instrumental to the success of this project. The integrated analytics and technol- ogy for dynamically adaptive networks is now mature and provides a significant step change in the way water distribution networks are managed in the UK. Case study Frank van der Kleij Head of asset risk and planning, Bristol Water continued overleaf Concept: from resilient internet connectivity to resilient water distribution networks Soware defined networks Source: Bristol Water "The project involves the next generation of intelligent water distribution networks that dynamically adapt their connectivity and hydraulic conditions." Internet Backbone Customers Customers Pumping and storage DMAs Water supply networks ISPs

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