Using mechanical reliability in multiobjective optimal meter placement for pipe burst detection

A multiobjective optimal meter placement (MOMP) model is proposed for water distribution system (WDS) pipe burst detection to (1) minimize the normalized total meter cost, (2) maximize the detection probability, (3) minimize the rate of false alarms, and (4) maximize the meter network's mechanical reliability. The mechanical reliability is a meter network's ability to continuously provide informative data/measurement even under measurement failures originating from either missing measurements for time steps or meter malfunction. A novel method for quantifying mechanical reliability is developed based on the simulation of a single-meter failure. In addition to meter locations, the optimal ratio between the pressure and pipe flow meters was identified for a predefined number of meters. The proposed MOMP model was demonstrated on two networks from the literature with different configurations, characteristics, and numbers of components. The results suggest that the proposed MOMP model should be used to determine the optimal meter location and best set of meters for high detectability and mechanical reliability of a specific network of interest.