The Dynamo club project is emulating the success of the Paradigm club project by bringing together industry experts to share their knowledge in the area of pressure analysis, management and control. Through this collaborative approach, Dynamo focuses on addressing the most pressing issues faced by the industry – as decided by the industry.
With the industry facing challenging performance commitments, maintaining calm, low levels of pressure on water networks is a key focus. To meet this challenge, water companies are deploying more pressure management solutions, making networks more complex and increasing operational risk. This, coupled with a corresponding increase in pressure monitoring, makes it more challenging to separate emerging network issues from data and asset failures, and ensure an effective response.
Starting with a thorough understanding of the opportunity for pressure reduction and network calming in each area, Dynamo allows analysts to understand the benefits which can be achieved through further optimisation. Aggregating and prioritising these at a zonal level ensures that wider strategic opportunities are explored before returning to implement and optimise individual schemes.
Click into the interactive image below to dive into the topic of pressure optimisation.
Ground level within the area allows practitioners to understand why pressure is varying across an area.
The green target pressure line shows the minimum pressure needed across the area, based on customer elevations and levels of service.
A PRV installed on the area inlet drops the pressure by a consistent amount.
This total head gradient shows how much pressure is available throughout the area at peak flow prior to the installation of the PRV, showing the opportunity for reduction.
The updated total head gradient shows the overall reduction in pressure which can be achieved by dropping the pressure until it reaches the green target pressure line.
Large users can have additional pressure or flow requirements, which should be considered at the design stage to ensure any service level requirements are met.
Tall buildings can present a challenge for supply and may need additional pressure to meet service level requirements to feed roof tanks.
In most cases, sufficient pressure reaching household properties forms the core design criteria for pressure management schemes.
Considering any exports to cascading areas ensures that downstream areas receive the pressure that they need.
Dynamo allows analysts to understand the factors restricting their ability to reduce pressure on their water networks. This includes understanding headloss, the elevation of properties, height of buildings and the impact of industrial users.
Creating pressure area designs sets an expectation for how each area should be performing, and identifies opportunities for further optimisation. Once optimised, ongoing comparison of monitored and design pressures ensures that areas continue to perform in line with design expectations.
By allowing analysts to view opportunity at a zonal level, Dynamo identifies both the opportunity for larger schemes as well the adjustment of existing pressure boundaries. This ensures simple, more sustainable solutions are not overlooked, ensuring further optimisation isn’t at the detriment of network resilience.
Bringing multiple flow and pressure data sources together allows Dynamo to understand whether areas are performing in line with expected and historical behaviour. This helps analysts understand where poor pressure performance could be a result of network integrity and data issues rather than equipment failure.
Fully utilising existing capabilities of network loggers allows water companies to identify potential transients and undertake localised investigations. This reduces the need for the deployment of more expensive transient logging solutions on a wider scale, minimising ongoing equipment and analysis costs.
Dynamo supports water companies in understanding the impact that transients can have on their networks. By quantifying the risks that different causes of transients pose to leakage and interruptions to supply, water companies can ensure investment is properly prioritised to deliver tangible performance improvements.
