Uncertainty quantification of water age in water supply systems by use of spectral propagation

Water distribution networks are critical infrastructures that should ensure the reliable supply of high quality potable water to its users. Numerical models of these networks are generally governed by many parameters for which the exact value is not known. This may be due to a lack of precise knowledge like for consumer demand or due to a lack of accessibility as for the pipe roughness. For network managers, the effect of these uncertainties on the network state is important information that supports them in the decision-making process. This effect is generally evaluated by propagating the uncertainties using the mathematical model. In the past, perturbation, fuzzy and stochastic collocation methods have been used for uncertainty propagation. However, these methods are limited either in the accuracy of the results or the computational effort of the necessary calculations. This paper uses an alternative spectral approach that uses the polynomial chaos expansion and has the potential to give results of comparable accuracy to the Monte Carlo sampling through the definition of a stochastic model. This approach is applied to the hydraulic model of two real networks in order to evaluate the influence of uncertain demands on the water age.