DESIGNING HYDRAULIC AIR CHAMBER IN WATER TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS USING GENETIC ALGORITHM

• Main Authors: Abdorahim Jamal, Mohsen Najarchi, S. Mohammad Mehdi Najafi Zade
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Society of Polish Mechanical Engineers and Technicians 2016-09-01
• Series: Advances in Science and Technology Research Journal
• Subjects: water transmission; transient flow; genetic algorithm; air chamber; water hammer; cavitation
• Online Access: http://www.journalssystem.com/astrj/Designing-Hydraulic-Air-Chamber-in-Water-Transmission-Systems-Using-Genetic-Algorithm,62119,0,2.html

Transient flow control in Water Transmission Systems (WTS) is one of the requirements of designing these systems. Hence, among control equipment, air chambers offer the best solution to control transient flow effects, i.e. both prevents water column separation and absorbs pressure increase. It is essential to carry out an accurate and optimized design of air chambers, not only due to high costs of their manufacturing but also their important protective role. Accordingly, hydraulic design parameters comprise tank volume, diameter of nozzle and coefficients of inflow and outflow of nozzle. In this paper, it is intended to optimize these parameters in order to minimize manufacturing costs. On the other hand, maximum and minimum pressures in main pipeline are considered as constraints which shall fall in allowed range. Therefore, a model has been developed which is a combination of a hydraulic simulation model of WTS and an optimization model based on genetic algorithm. This model is first applied to WTS of Dehgolan-Ghorveh plain as a case study. Results of this research demonstrate that based on suggested model, negative wave creation and pressure increase in pipeline is prevented as well as decrease in manufacturing costs of air chamber.