Reliability-Based Assessment of Lifecycle Cost of Urban Water Distribution Infrastructures

Water distribution systems, as an urban infrastructure, have an indisputable role in the productivity of a society and the quality of life of its residents. It is necessary to develop policies for evaluation of the urban infrastructure performance and determining the proper time of maintenance and rehabilitation activities to increase system productivity and expand the system’s efficient performance time. In this paper, an algorithm is developed to evaluate the efficiency of urban water infrastructure performance, broken down into costs and benefits, and to determine the optimal time of water distribution network (WDN) rehabilitation using a probabilistic approach. The proposed algorithm is examined in a real water distribution network in Iran. Considering different break scenarios, the WDN’s performance within the projected performance period is simulated. The efficiency of the WDN is quantified using a reliability-based indicator, and costs and benefits of its performance are also evaluated. Bas...