Pressure Zoning Approach for Leak Detection in Water Distribution Systems Based on a Multi Objective Ant Colony Optimization

Leakages result in considerable loss of water in water pipe networks. Therefore it is an important issue to detect leakage amount and its approximate location. Leakages in water distribution system are directly related to the operating pressure. In the current study, a new model is proposed for leakage amount and location detection and it is applied into two benchmark water distribution networks. In the proposed method, the water distribution networks are divided into three pressure zones in order to consider the leakage differences in different operating pressures. Then, nodal pressures and demands are calibrated using a new multi objective ant colony based optimization model. In this method, leaks are simulated as extra nodal demands. For determining the nodes where leakage happens, a probability based scheme is used. The leakage occurrence probability varies depending on the pressure zone that each node is located. The results illustrate the applicability of the proposed model for detecting the leakages in water distribution systems.