A decision support system to design water supply and sewer pipes replacement intervention programs

• Published in: Reliability engineering & system safety 2021-12, Vol.216, p.107967, Article 107967
• Main Authors: Ramos-Salgado, Cristóbal, Muñuzuri, Jesús, Aparicio-Ruiz, Pablo, Onieva, Luis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Asset management; Configurations; Decision support systems; Genetic algorithms; Grouping; Multi-objective optimization; Multiple objective analysis; Objective function; Pipe replacement; Pipes; Reliability engineering; Sensitivity analysis; Sewer pipes; Sewer systems; Sustainability; Voronoi cells; Waste management; Wastewater; Water distribution; Water distribution and sewer system; Water engineering; Water supply; Water utilities
• ISSN: 0951-8320; 1879-0836
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2021.107967

•Decision support system to help water utilities design practical work programs.•Two-stage grouping algorithm to aggregate water pipes into replacement programs.•Work programs optimization through a multi-objective genetic algorithm.•Integration of external criteria and the managers knowledge and experience.•Sensitivity analysis of the company's strategic policy on the work programs. Asset management in hydraulic infrastructures aims for the long-term sustainability of water distribution and wastewater networks. Strategic maintenance planning has thus been deeply analyzed in the literature for individual water and sewer pipes. However, water utilities do not plan and perform replacement activities on individual elements, but rather on coherent aggregations of neighboring pipes. We have developed a decision support system (DSS) to help water utilities design intervention programs for hydraulic infrastructures. It integrates a two-stage algorithm that groups water supply and sewer pipes into practical and efficient replacement works, based upon their proximity and their priority of renewal. A multi-objective genetic algorithm optimizes the work programs configurations while integrating the water company's strategic policy into an innovative multi-objective function. We have applied our methodology to a large water company in Spain and illustrated this application with a sensitivity analysis to determine how the company's strategic criteria influences the resulting work configurations.