What Epanet cand and cannot do
Good news!Epanet can do most of the calculations you may need for your project,and
those that Epanet cannot do are actually pretty easy to do on a piece fo paper,You will
use Epanet mainly for:
》Determining what pipes with which diameters should be used.
》Determining what improvements and /or extensions the network needs.
》Determining where to install the tanks,valves and pumps.
》Studying chlorine's behavior and the necessity to establish secondary
chlorination points.
Although you can also use Epanet to make the following calculations,in my opinion,it
is safer and much quicker and less prone to error to make them by hand:
》Dimensioning tanks.
》Pump selection for simple pumping systems(it can calculate complicated
ones).
》Estimation of energy consumption.
》Simulation of the behavior of different elements,such as pressure reducing
valves or pressure sustaining valves.Even though these valves are quite
useful,they are difficult to find in many contexts.
Epanet's benefits are described in detail in the Epanet Users Manual.
What Epanet CANNOT do
Epanet assumes the quasi_equilibrium condition,that is,it assumes there are no
abrupt changes in the network.This is true up to a certain point.Long pipes(many
kilometers long),are very resistant to change,and beneficiaries do not behave like a
sardine shoal,opening and closing taps in unison.However,it leaves out some real
and quick phenomena such as pipe bursting,water hammer(which is caused by a
mass of water which weighs several tones and is stopped in just a few seconds after
closing a valve),sudden shutting of non-return valves,starting a pump or stopping it,
etc.
Some of the things Epanet CANNOT do:
1.Calculate water hammer.
2.Simulate pipe bursting.
3.Model the real behavior of non-return valves.
4.Evaluate the consequences of the presence of air inside the network.
To sum up,it does not allow you to model abrupt changes that do happen in real life
and some of which can be destructive.
----From Book 《Epanet and Development. How to Calculate Water Networks by Computer》
[ Santiago Arnalich, Maxim Fortin, Amelia Jimenez]