Optimization of drinking water treatment and distribution
Optimization of drinking water treatment and distribution
Water utilities today have an increasingly difficult job of planning for the future under tighter constraints, due to both budget and regulations, an increasing number of divergent water quality goals (e.g. reduce lead, reduce disinfection byproducts, prevent pathogen concerns, provide more resiliency to system failure) and all while under increased uncertainty due to changing populations, climate change and changing quantities and quality of supply. This project considers approaches to improve long-term planning for drinking water infrastructure to current needs. A decision-making optimization model is paired with a predictive water quality simulation model. Together they identify a set of robust treatment system configurations and the associated tradeoffs among identified objectives (cost, water quality) based on the predicted water quality. Configurations provided include treatment locations and capacity within the existing distribution system. The figure below shows the model formulation.
Contact Information
Jeanne M. VanBriesen
Duquesne Light Company Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Phone: (412) 268-4603
Fax: (412) 268-7813
Email: jeanne@cmu.edu
Office Location: Porter Hall 123 G