Optimal Design of Water Distribution Network Using Differential Evolution

A water distribution network (WDN) consists of thousands of nodes with nonlinear hydraulic behaviour, linked by thousands of interconnecting links. The inherent problem associated with cost optimisation in the design of water distribution networks is due to the nonlinear relationship between flow and head loss and availability of the discrete nature of pipe sizes. The importance and huge capital cost of the system leads to considerable attention on seeking the optimal cost design. The present paper is focused on the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm linked with EPANET software to achieve the goal of optimisation of a specified objective function. A simulation–optimisation model is developed in which the optimization is done by DE. Two well-known benchmark networks were taken for application of the DE algorithm to optimise pipe size and the results prove that the algorithm can perform satisfactorily.