Cross Entropy Optimization for Optimal Design of Water Distribution Networks

Abstract

This paper presents cross entropy (CE) based methodology for optimal design of water distribution network (WDN). Design of WDN involves selection of suitable diameter for each pipe in the network from the list of commercially available diameters. The CE methodology is applied to two bench mark WDN design problems taken from literature for validation. The first WDN problem deals with determining optimal pipe sizes for planning a new system, while the second WDN deals with rehabilitation of existing WDN by parallel piping. The performance of CE is compared with the results of past studies and it is found that the CE resulted in good optimal solutions. Then, the model is applied to a case study in India. The results suggest that CE method is very effective in optimal design of water distribution networks and has the capability of rapid convergence to optimum solutions.