Modeling and Simulation of Chemical and Biological Agents in Potable Water Systems

Modeling the fate and transport of CBR agents introduced into water is crucial to predict the vulnerability of current water distribution systems. Current hydraulics models such as EPANet do a reasonably good job of modeling the transport of pollutants in water. Such codes can be used to model the transport of CBR agents in water distribution systems, provided the material properties and degradation kinetics of these agents are integrated into the code and databases. The degradation mechanisms of interest include agent neutralization due to disinfectants in bulk water and interactions with rough pipe walls. In this study, we propose to carry out lab scale experiments on select simulants for anthrax, a biological agent and VX, a chemical agent to characterize the degradation kinetics due to exposure to chlorine, a common disinfectant in water. We will integrate the decay kinetics into EPANet and carry out code verification. The key deliverable at the end of this project is the EPANet model containing agent degradation databases for simulants of one chemical and one biological agent.