Predictive Simulation of Chemical and Biological Agents in Potable Water Systems

Accidental or intentional contamination of water distribution systems with chemical and biological agents and contaminants can have long-lasting and disastrous consequences. Existing DoD and municipal utility installations currently are not equipped to handle such events. This is due to a lack of (1) sensitive fast-response sensors to detect several types of contaminants in the network, (2) accurate physics based simulation tools to predict the contaminant fate and transport, and (3) decontamination methods. The objective of this SBIR project is to develop a physics-based sensor enabled simulation software to predict contaminant fate and transport in potable water systems. We propose to build this software by expanding BlazeTech’s windows-based object oriented biological contaminant fate and transport software called H2OFate. H2OFate currently has models for hydraulics simulation, water quality analysis and biological contaminant fate and transport analysis. We propose to improve these models, add chemical contaminant capability, a source inversion model, interfaces for SCADA systems and GIS and perform software verification and validation in this SBIR project. The software thus developed can be used to predict the fate and transport of chemical, biological and radiological agents, toxic industrial chemicals, disinfection byproducts, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, toxins and residual disinfectants in water distribution networks.