Nonlinear non-convex optimization of hydraulic networks

Pressure management in water supply systems is an effective way to reduce the leakage in a system. In this paper, the pressure management and the reduction of power consumption of a water supply system is formulated as an optimization problem. The problem is to minimize the power consumption in pumps and also to regulate the pressure at the end-user valves to a desired value. The optimization problem which is solved is a nonlinear and non-convex optimization. The barrier method is used to solve this problem. The modeling framework and the optimization technique which are used are general. They can be used for a general hydraulic networks to optimize the leakage and energy consumption and to satisfy the demands at the end-users. The results in this paper show that the power consumption of the pumps is reduced.