Hydraulic transients, commonly known as water hammer, pose a serious threat to water distribution systems, as they can often cause catastrophic pipe bursts. Simulating hydraulic transients remains a challenge due to the nonlinear governing equations, limited field data, and a host of operating conditions and requirements. We designed this session based on the adage that "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.” The purpose is to emphasize the importance of the topic, introduce the fundamentals of water hammer simulation, and caution against common pitfalls that could lead to catastrophic failures of pipes and appurtenances in hydraulic systems. In the session, you will explore case studies that show how InfoWater Pro is used to protect piping infrastructure from potential harm by transients. You will also acquire a solid understanding of InfoWater Pro software's Surge functionality, which will help you analyze and mitigate transients within your own systems.

Flushing large-diameter transmission water mains is a critical yet complex step in maintaining water quality. This session will highlight how InfoWater Pro was used to plan the flushing of more than six miles of 36-inch pipe by modeling hydraulic conditions, reversing flow direction, and optimizing valve and tank operations. You’ll learn about modeling guided decision making to increase flow rates for scouring while avoiding disruptions to customer service. Through a focused case study, this session will illustrate how to integrate hydraulic modeling and operational strategy to support effective large-main flushing.

In this session, we'll equip attendees with practical skills and tools to facilitate the integration of sensor data and analytics into InfoWater Pro software's water distribution models using Info360 Insight software. Our primary focus will be the underexplored strategy of dynamically coupling hydraulic models with sensor data, a key aspect in deploying digital twins. These connected models have the potential to save utilities substantial resources through improved operational decision making. We'll discuss the data types suitable for hydraulic models, the preprocessing steps required, and various integration strategies, such as the automatic scaling of customer demands to meet forecasts. The aim is to provide a thorough understanding of digital twins' application in hydraulic modeling, offering attendees valuable insights into this intricate domain.

Huge volumes of drinking water are lost to background leakage during distribution. This entails large financial and environmental footprints from extraction, transport, treatment, storage, and pumping. While water models usually simplify leakage to behave as fixed demands, InfoWater Pro software’s new modeling capabilities explicitly incorporate the sensitivity of losses to pressure changes. In this session, we will demonstrate how to easily convert a regular distribution model into one with realistic leakage using a new allocation tool. Both hydraulic and asset pipe information (such as age, number of connections, and material) is used to determine realistic allocations of known leakage amounts per zone to individual elements. Moreover, we will explore how a leakage-aware model can lead to detailed spatiotemporal estimates of water loss under different operating scenarios, and lead to precise quantifications of the economic and hydraulic effects of asset replacement and pressure-control programs.

The water industry is undergoing a state of rapid change as it faces a $1 trillion global risk of damaging flooding and water shortages that could impact 5 billion people by 2050. It's estimated that 60% of global water utilities will be forced to undergo digital transformation of their infrastructure to adapt to growing risks and meet sustainability demands. Join the Autodesk water team as we explore how digital transformation is reshaping the way the world manages water and water infrastructure. Through the lens of Autodesk's desktop hydraulic modeling products—InfoWorks ICM, InfoDrainage, InfoWater Pro, and InfoWorks WS Pro—we'll explore practical examples of how rapidly advancing digital technology is helping transform the workflows of industry stakeholders, including utilities, consultants, engineers, water modelers, and others.

Service disruptions are inevitable regardless of your water source, and they often result in chaos for operators, administrators, and residents. Even as communities move toward more proactive water system management, unanticipated disruptions will always occur. Utilities should be as prepared as possible to respond quickly and effectively. This presentation will explore the innovative ways the City of Livonia, located outside Detroit, is planning for and exploring potential water service disruption scenarios with hydraulic modeling through InfoWater Pro and ArcGIS Dashboards. With aging assets the city has experienced increasingly severe water system failures. Susan Knepper (OHM Advisors) will share the tools and practices she used to help the city plan for its water service disruptions, and she’ll cover the creative way she documented the city’s disruption protocols. Tim Medearis (Autodesk) will briefly share how Info360 can make this workflow even easier in the future.

Water distribution models are used throughout the world to provide customers access to clean, reliable drinking water, as well as sufficient pressure for fire suppression in emergencies. These models are only as valuable as they are accurate. The old process of updating the model every five years for a master plan is outdated and inefficient. The infrequent updating is a byproduct of the many sources of data needed to update your model. Using built-in tools for InfoWater Pro and incorporating telemetry data from Info360 Insight, we will walk through some of the many workflows that are involved in updating models and we’ll explore how much faster they can be accomplished with the right tools. Additionally, we will discuss the important analysis being done with water distribution models and how outdated models can be costly in social, environmental, and financial ways.