Abstract
Inadequate treatment of drinking water causes the formation of disinfection by-products and the regrowth of harmful microbial species. Various studies have addressed the problem of water quality monitoring, but very few have employed topological analysis, a valuable mathematical tool widely applied in biological, business, and social research. This thesis examines the relationship between the topological properties of water distribution systems and water-quality models. In particular, the research proposes a novel framework for mapping network topological attributes to water-quality models. This research adopts topological metrics to assess the accuracy of the predictions of chlorine concentrations in dead ends. It examines four fundamental water-quality models: advection, advection-dispersion, bulk-advection, and bulk-advection-dispersion. The results show the bulk-advection-dispersion model has larger root mean square errors in networks with a grid structure, and that topological metrics are generally correlated with water-quality models, although more studies are required to develop this correlation in detail.
Committee Chair
Pratim Biswas
Committee Members
Palghat Ramachandran Rajan Chakrabarty Jeff Yang
Degree
Master of Science (MS)
Author's Department
Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
Winter 12-4-2019
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/72dw-s854
Recommended Citation
Chao, Chun-Ying, "Modeling the Effects of Distribution System Topology on Water Quality" (2019). McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations. 506.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/72dw-s854