A hydraulic network model was constructed for the City of Sidney, Ohio water distribution system. It consists of 104 miles of water mains, some of which are well over a hundred year old and serve the original part of the system. The City intends to use the model for available fire flow analysis and a variety of many other applications. It is essential that the hydraulic model be able to accurately simulate the real system conditions. Model calibration is the critical step to achieve this goal.

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... o calibrate the model, Sidney's Public Utility Department collected the pressure data at twenty locations, along with the boundary conditions of the observed tank levels and pump operating status. The calibration proceeds by applying a well-integrated hydraulic simulation and genetic algorithm optimization modeling platform in two phases including the systemic demand calibration to establish an extended period flow balance model and hydraulic grade calibration under multiple loading conditions. The model calibration performed for the Sidney water distribution model improves the confidence in the modeling results. It assists the engineers to better understand the insight into the system hydraulics and enhances modeling quality for evaluating the available fire flow and system improvement design. This paper illustrates the critical steps of the calibration process and the applications of the calibrated model for the City of Sidney.