A study on the simulation method for the flushing flowrate and velocity in the watermain using a hydrant and a drain valve

Recently, due to the deterioration of watermains and the detachment of scale which is accumulated on the watermain surface, water quality accidents in a water supply network occur frequently. As scale accumulated on watermains is stabilized, it may not cause water quality accidents under the normal operating condition. However, due to water hammer or transient flow caused by the abrupt velocity and/or direction of flow change, it can be detached from the watermain surface resulting in water quality accidents. To prevent these kinds of water quality accidents, it is required to remove scale by watermain cleaning regularly. Many researches about flushing which is the most popular water cleaning method are focused on the desirable velocity criteria and the cleaning condition to accomplish the effect of flushing whereas less amount of research effort is given to develop a method to consider whether the desirable velocity for flushing can be obtained before flushing is performed. During flushing, the major and minor headloss is occurred when flushing water flows through a hydrant or drain valve. These headloss may slow down the velocity of flushing water so that it can reduce the flushing effect. Thus, in this study, we suggest a method to simulate the flow velocity of flushing water using “MinorLoss Coefficient” and “Emitter Coefficient” in EPANET. The suggested method is applied to a sample network and the water supply network of “A” city in Korea to compare the flushing effect between “flushing through a hydrant” and “flushing through a drain valve”. In case of “flushing through a hydrant”, if the hydraulic condition ocurring from a watermain pipe connecting to the inlet pipe of a hydrant to the outlet of a hydrant is not considered, the actual flowrate and velocity of a flow is less than the simulated flowrate and velocity of a flow. In case of “flushing through a drain valve”, the flushing velocity and flowrate can be easily simulated and the difference between the simulated and the actual velocity and flowrate is not significant. Also, “flushing through a drain valve” is very effective to flushing a long-length pipe section because of its efficiency to obtain the flushing velocity. However, the number and location of a drain valve is limited compared to a hydrant so that “flushing through a drain valve” has a limited application in the field. For this reason, the engineer should consider various field conditions to come up with a proper flushing plan.