Hydraulic Resilience Index for the Critical Link Analysis of Multi-feed Water Distribution Networks

AbstractA novel hydraulic resilience index for the analysis of water distribution networks (WDN) is presented based on the reserve capacity, a concept extensively studied in transportation network literature. The reserve capacity is defined as a demand multiplier that represents how close a WDN is operating to a minimum service level. A method for calculating the reserve capacity efficiently using Newton's method is presented. Its use is demonstrated with a critical link analysis and a design problem, and compared with another well-established index. The index provides intuitive insight into the behaviour of a WDN that other indexes may not always capture