About closed pipes

Standard practice in water supply networks is to install valves at both ends of a pipe run that are fully open in normal operation. During various emergencies, repair jobs for instance, these valves are closed down and supplies rezoned. There may also be a number of valves that are normally closed for a variety of reasons. These devices may be modelled as throttled valves or time controlled valves but this will make the model much larger.

InfoWorks WS Pro allows you to close or to open any pipe within the network. Any disturbing effects to the network (like isolating a region with non-zero demand) are reported with an appropriate message when running the simulation.

This feature is particularly useful when modelling existing water distribution systems.

Closed pipes case 1

A reservoir is protected from excessive inflows by closing down some neighbouring pipes.

Closed pipes case 2

A small town is supplied by its own local water supply system most of the time, but in an emergency can get additional quantities from a nearby regional system.