Pressure Management in Water Distribution Systems Using a Self-Tuning Controller to Distribute the Available Potable Water with Equality

The rapid population growth of cities in developing countries (DC) make difficult to distribute the available potable water (PW) with equality. The distribution problem arises from an insufficient amount of PW and because cities water distribution systems (WDS) are not efficient. The novelty of this paper is a self-tuning controller (STC) proposed to manage, along the day, the pressure of water through the nodes of a WDS. It means, pressure management (PM) is proposed to control water levels (WLs) in householders tanks (HTs). The objective is to satisfy with equality the PW demand at different zones of a city forcing the flow of water by managing the pressure. The proposed STC performance is tested on the digital simulator developed to characterize the hydraulic operation of a WDS. The dynamic behaviour of the WDS is determined by the variation of the WL in the tanks of the WDS when water is supplied or extracted from them. The WDS of Mexico City is analysed and the proposed STC is applied to a simplified WDS. The results allow to conclude that the proposed STC could become a supporting tool for the decision making of WDS operators.