Numerical investigation of the impact of irregular pipe wall build-up on velocity in the water distribution system

This paper presents novel equations for different wall build-up types in old pipes developed for the estimation of real flow velocities in a water distribution system (WDS). This is important when estimating the contamination propagation rate in an operational WDS. Because the inner surface geometry of old rough pipes is complex, real velocities cannot be estimated by conventional WDS models. Therefore, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was used to analyse the flow dynamics in old rough pipes with even and uneven roughness build-up. The developed equations for the velocity correction coefficients derive from the results of numerical simulations. Numerically obtained velocity fields show that in some cases, pipe wall build-up can affect the effective flow section significantly and the flow velocity can be underestimated by more than two times. Therefore, different velocity correction equations have to be used for different types of pipe wall build-up.