Optimal Design of Water Distribution Networks using the Genetic Algorithms: (I) -Cost optimization-

Genetic Algorithm을 이용한 상수관망의 최적설계: (I) -비용 최적화를 중심으로-

Many algorithms to find a minimum cost design of water distribution network (WDN) have been developed during the last decades. Most of them have tried to optimize cost only while satisfying other constraining conditions. For this, a certain degree of simplification is required in their calculation process which inevitably limits the real application of the algorithms, especially, to large networks. In this paper, an optimum design method using the Genetic Algorithms (GA) is developed which is designed to increase the applicability, especially for the real world large WDN. The increased to applicability is due to the inherent characteristics of GA consisting of selection, reproduction, crossover and mutation. Just for illustration, the GA method is applied to find an optimal solution of the New York City water supply tunnel. For the calculation, the parameter of population size and generation number is fixed to 100 and the probability of crossover is 0.7, the probability of mutation is 0.01. The yielded optimal design is found to be superior to the least cost design obtained from the Linear Program method by $4.276 million.