A digital twin model of SIU water distribution system for sustainable water asset management (SIU Sustainability, Green Fund)

Project Summary

Is SIU’s water safe for drinking? Are we consuming water efficiently at SIU under climate change? The American Society of Civil Engineers rated ‘D+’ to Illinois drinking water infrastructure. This indicates that many water distribution system (WDS) components are reaching the end of life with aging and deteriorating. Since SIU’s establishment in 1869, many school and college buildings have been built, accompanied by the construction of WDS in SIU. As expected from the grade D+, many SIU WDS components (e.g., pipes and pumps) are also aging and deteriorating. The deteriorating WDS causes water leakage, resulting in substantial water wastage (Generally, U.S. water systems lose 10 ~ 30% of supplied water every day through leakage!), degrading SIU’s water sustainability. Furthermore, aging WDS requires more energy consumption due to the increase in energy losses from growing pipe roughness and pump energy use/costs, which negatively affects SIU’s energy efficiency/sustainability.

A way to address the aging infrastructure is utility asset maintenance (e.g., pipe replacement /rehabilitation). However, WDS is a buried “invisible infrastructure”. In this regard, how can SIU utility managers (Facilities and Energy Management, FEM) monitor and prioritize the WDS components for maintenance? SIU’s FEM has installed multiple sensors/meters for water/energy monitoring for SIU’s WDS. However, the sensor/meter placement is limited due to budget availability and physical accessibility. Thus, the limited number of sensors/meters is insufficient to display and monitor the SIU WDS’s performance in spatially extensive service coverage. In this regard, we propose to address this challenge by developing a “digital twin” model (hydraulic-simulation-based WDS visualization model) for SIU WDS. This SIU WDS digital twin model will visualize water flow, pressure, pipe aging, and energy consumption in the SIU WDS, which contributes to the SIU FEM’s monitoring of all metered/unmetered service areas. In this project, we confine the research scope to SIU’s Evergreen Terrace area, considering data availability, SIU WDS’s operational complexity, and the one-year project period.

Specifically, this project is designed with two tasks: (1) digitized mapping of SIU Evergreen Terrace WDS and (2) developing its hydraulic simulation/visualization model. For Task 1, we will survey the components and geometric information of Evergreen Terrace WDS using the Global Positioning System device and SIU FEM’s data (see the letter of support.). The measured WDS information will be extracted/digitized using Google Earth and ArcGIS. Mapping the Evergreen Terrace WDS will provide input data for the digital twin model in Task 2. For Task 2, we will use U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s EPANET model to develop a hydraulic Evergreen Terrace WDS simulation model. The simulation model will be calibrated and tested using the observations (water pressure) from fire hydrant tests and other descriptive data.

The project outcomes include a digitized map and simulation/visualization model for SIU’s Evergreen Terrace WDS. They will help SIU FEM manage the SIU’s WDS to improve SIU’s water/energy use efficiency, which will ultimately contribute to the vision and missions for Saluki sustainability. The success of this project will lead to a project extending the simulation/visualization model to the entire SIU WDS.