research

Digital twin model of SIU water distribution system

This project develops a digital twin model that simulates and visualizes the hydraulic performance of the SIU water distribution system in the Evergreen Terrace apartment. The project outcomes will contribute to advancing the information and monitoring capacity of SIU’s Facilities and Energy Management (FEM) to improve the water/energy use efficiency of SIU water systems. This project is funded by the Student Green Fee that is used in establishing a culture of SIU sustainability.  

Water microgrids system for resilient and sustainable water supply

This project establishes a new model of hybrid centralized and decentralized water supply systems - i.e., a water microgrids system. The water microgrids approach allows flexible operational tradeoffs between the centralized and decentralized system sunder normal and abnormal conditions and, in turn, improves water supply resilience and long-term sustainability together. The project outcomes will advance scientific progress by providing the practice of the Law of Requisite Variety and lead to new planning and tools for urban lifeline infrastructure to incorporate microgrids infrastructure.  

SIU water data analytics for SIU water sustainability

This project develops Python-based supporting tools for SIU water use prediction and SIU utility anomaly detection using machine learning models. The project outcomes will contribute to encouraging SIU members to save water use and help the SIU’s Facilities and Energy Management (FEM) improve their water/energy monitoring capabilities. This project is funded by the Student Green Fee that is used in establishing a culture of SIU sustainability.  

Failure detection and identification framework for water cyber-physical systems

This research investigated the performance of machine learning classification models in distinguishing and identifying failure events that can occur in a water cyber-physical system for the rapid initiation of emergency and recovery actions during system disruptions.

Resilience effects of decentralized detention system to extreme flooding events

This research investigated the resilience effects of decentralized detention systems to cope with extreme flooding events (the combined impacts of high-intensity rainfall and land cover changes) in urban areas. We developed new measures for regional flooding resilience and integrated flooding resilience and applied the measures to explore how the resilience effects of decentralized detention systems vary with the combined impacts of climate and land cover changes.      

Multi-dimensional resilience for water distribution networks

This research investigated resilience and its attributes (i.e., robustness, loss rate, recovery rate, failure duration, and recovery completeness) in multiple functional dimensions and explored a multi-dimensional resilience evaluation framework for resilience-based decision-making. This approach was applied to water distribution networks under contamination intrusions and attacks.