Calibration of parameters of water supply network model using genetic algorithm

Computer simulation models of water supply networks are commonly applied in the water industry. As part of the research works, results of which are presented in the paper, OFF-LINE and ON-LINE calibration of water supply network model parameters using two methods was carried out and compared. The network skeleton was developed in the Epanet software. For optimization two types of dependent variables were subjected: the pressure on the node and volume flow in the network section. The first calibration method regards to application of the genetic algorithm, which is a build in plugin - "Epanet Calibrator". The second method was related to the use of function ga, which is implemented in the MATLAB toolbox Genetic Algorithm and Direct Search. The possibilities of application of these algorithms to solve the issue of optimizing the parameters of the created model of water supply network in both cases: OFF-LINE and ON-LINE calibration was examined. An analysis of the effectiveness of the considered algorithms for different values of configuration parameters was performed. Based on the achieved results it was stated that application of the ga algorithm gives higher correlation of the calibrated values to the empirical data.