WaterGEMS – How to Design a Water Distribution System

When you open the program in order to create a New Hydraulic Model the first step you
should do is to confirm the units you are working on. Choose Tools > More > Options, click on
the Units tab and then Reset Default button and select SI. Moreover, click on the Drawing tab
to make sure Drawing Mode is set to Scaled. For instance set the plot scale factor: 1cm = 40m.

To set up the Hydraulic Model choose File > Hydraulic Model Properties and name the
hydraulic model and click OK. Enter the file name for your model and click Save.

The next step is to lay out the network, to do so you can use a background file. Select View >
Backgrounds to open Background layers manager. Right click on the Background Layers folder
and select New > File. On the Select Background dialog you can browse your .dxf, .jpeg or
many other types of file formats.

Drawing:

1. Pumping System – Reservoir + Pipe + Pump + Pipe + Reservoir

From the Home tab select the Layout. Move the cursor to the drawing pane, right
click, and select Reservoir from the menu, click to place it. Move the cursor to the
location of the pump, right-click and select Pump from the shortcut menu. Click to
place it. Between R-1 and PMP-1 you can see P-1 is formed and it represents the pipe
which connects the reservoir to the pump. To add more pipes you will need to create
junctions, with this in mind right click to select Junction from the menu and place it
where you want it. You can add more pipes through the creation of more junctions in
order to elaborate a more complex design if that is the case required. When finished
right-click and choose Done from the menu.

If necessary you can add to your design items such as a Tank and a valve PRV from the
list of elements and connect them to your system as done previously with the
reservoir, pump and junctions.

2. Hydro turbine system – Reservoir + Pipe + Turbine + Pipe + Reservoir

As done for the pumping system above, follow the same instructions with the
exception of creating a turbine instead of a pump. In order to do so, choose Turbine
from the list of elements.

Enter and modify data: Property Editor

 Reservoir – Open the Reservoir Editor by double-clicking on R-1. Enter the elevation in
metres. Also, you have to set Zone to Connection Zone. In order to do this, in the
Reservoir Editor, beneath the elevation parameter, click the menu to Edit Zones which
will open the Zones Manager. Click New and enter a layer for the new pressure zone
called Connection Zone. Click close and select the zone you just created from the Zone
menu. Close the Reservoir Property Editor.

Numbers in Red are just examples.

  Tank - If you happen to have a tank, double click on tank T-1 and changes these
following settings to your own: Elevation (Base) = 200 m, Elevation (Minimum) = 220
m, Elevation (Initial) = 225 m, Elevation (Maximum) = 226 m, Diameter (m) = 8, Section
= Circular. Also you will have to create Zone-1 in the Zone Manager, the same way you
created Connection Zone. Set the Zone to Zone-1 in the Tank Property Editor.

 Pump – Double click on pump PMP-1 and enter an elevation. Click in the pump
definition field and click on Edit Pump Definitions from the drop-down list to open the
Pump Definitions Manager. Click New and create a new pump definition. Name it for
example PMP-1. Select Standard (3 Point) from the Pump Definition menu. You should
right click on Flow to open the Units and Formatting menu in order to set the Units to
L/min in the Set Field Options dialog. At this point, you should enter values for the
flow design (3800 L/min) and max operating (7500 L/min) and for the head shutoff (30
m), design (27,40 m) and max operating (24,80 m). Close the Pump Definitions
Manager and in the Property Editor, select PMP-1 from the Pump Definition menu.

 Valve (PRV) – Double click on the valve in the drawing. Enter the following data:
Status (Initial) = Active, Setting type = Pressure, Pressure setting (initial) = 390 kPa,
Elevation = 165 m, Diameter (Valve) = 150 mm. Also, create Zone 2 and set the valve’s
Zone field to Zone 2. Close the PRV Property Editor.

 Junction – Enter your values for ground elevation (m), demand and zone data for all
the junctions in the Junction Property Editor. Leave all other fields set to their default
values. As for Demand, click in the Demand Collection field to open the Demands
manager and enter each value for the Demand Base Flow (L/min). You may need to
right-click on Demand (Base) column > Units Formatting > and set Unit to L/min.

 Pipes – If you need to specify user-defined lengths for pipes, double click on the pipe
to open the Pipe Property Editor. In the case of the pipe P-1, since you are using the
reservoir and pump to simulate the connection to the main distribution system, you
want headloss through this pipe to be negligible. Therefore, the length is very small
and the diameter will be large. As an example you can enter 1000 mm as the diameter
of P1. Set the Has User Defined Length? To True. Then you can enter a value of 0.01m
in the length field, as an example. The rest of the pipes you should change the lengths
but not the diameters, unless it is required.

 Turbine – When using a Turbine in your system, double click on the TBN-1 and enter
an elevation. You will need to establish the Turbine Curve and to do so it is required to
enter 4 parameters of flow and head. The reason for this is that for a transient run,
HAMMER uses a 4-quadrant curve based on Specific Speed, Rated Head and Rated
Flow. You should introduce, also under Transient (Physical), a diameter (mm),
moment of inertia (kg.m2) and rotational speed (rpm) of the turbine.

Instead of Property Editor, WaterGEMs allow us to view and edit the properties of multiple
elements at once using FlexTables (other option to enter and modify data).

Numbers in Red are just examples.

Run a Steady-State Analysis:

Click Analysis > Options to open the Calculation Options manager. Double-click Base
Calculation Options under the Steady-State/EPS Solver heading to open the Property Editor.
You should make sure that the Time Analysis Type is set to Steady State. Close the Property
Editor and the Calculation Options manager. Then, click Analysis > Validate and if everything
is okay click Compute on the Home or Analysis tabs to analyse the model!

Extended Period Simulation (EPS):

To run an extended period simulation it is necessary to create demand patterns. Therefore,

open the Property Editor for a Junction and click in the Demand Collection field to open the
Demands box. Enter a demand in l/min for Flow and click in the Pattern (Demand) field to
open the Patterns manager. Once there, highlight the Hydraulic folder and click New to create
a hydraulic pattern. Rename the new pattern, enter a start time and enter a Starting
Multiplier like 0.5. In the Pattern Format menu select Stepwise.

Note that the multiplier for the last time given (24h) must be the same as the Starting
Multiplier. These values are equal because the demand curve represents a complete cycle,
with the last point being the same as the first.

Under the Hourly tab, enter the times and multipliers for the demand requested. Close the
boxes and enter the demand data for the remainder junctions. You can easily enter this data
by using the Demand Control Center in Components > Demand Center > Demand Control
Center. Enter the demand and corresponding pattern for each of the junctions.

To run an EPS go to Analysis > Options, double click on Base Calculation Options under Steady
State/EPS Solver to open the property editor and select EPS from the Time Analysis Type
menu. Click Analysis > Validate, then Compute. You can have your results shown by a graph
with the flow over time by clicking on Calculating Summary > Graph.

Don’t forget to Save.

Numbers in Red are just examples.