Design of water distribution network via ant colony optimization

Optimal designing of the water distribution network is a multi-variable optimization problem. Due to the problem of the water distribution network, an ant colony optimization (ACO) method is proposed for designing the network. The proposed ACO set the penalty function for each node and the conversion cost of the water distribution network for goal to achieve the goal of optimal designing. During the searching process, the ACO directly selects the value from the combination of pipe diameter. The ACO is able to avoid the emergence of the pipeline diameter which can not meet the engineering requirements. Comparing with other optimal methods, the ACO has the good global searching ability and a broad application prospects.