NetSafe- Enhanced Water Distribution NETwork SAFEty through a Predictive Simulation Software

In this proposal, Global Quality Corp., in collaboration with researchers from University of Cincinnati and Wright State University, proposes to develop NetSafe –a systemwide simulation software for predictive simulation of the fate and transport of chemical and biological agents in DWDS. Based on real-time hydraulic and water quality measurements, NetSafe will be capable of reliably identifying the presence of chemical and biological agents and predicting the transport of such contaminants in DWDS for vulnerability analysis and optimal emergency response. NetSafe will convert various recent research efforts to commercial grade software components inside a robust integration framework. The proposed methodology is based on research work conducted by the team in the recent two years and has the following advantages. First, a novel contaminant detection method combining local information with valuable systemwide information is employed to improve detection performance. Second, the proposed backtracking based contaminant source identification algorithm is computationally efficient and suitable for real-world applications. Third, our in-house EPANET multi species extension (MSX) software tools are capable of modeling different physicochemical mechanisms and offers great flexibility for water quality modeling. Fourth, hydraulic models are calibrated online to improve modeling accuracy.