Traditional techniques for hydraulic analysis of water distribution networks, which are referred to as demand-driven simulation method (DDSM), are normally analyzed under the assumption that nodal demands are known and satisfied. In many cases, such as pump outage or pipe burst, the demands at nodes affected by low pressures will decrease. Therefore, hydraulic analysis of pipe networks under deficient pressure conditions using conventional DDSM may cause large deviation from actual situations.

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... n this paper, an optimization model is introduced for hydraulic analysis of water distribution networks using a meta-heuristic method called Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm. In this methodology, there is no need to solve linear systems of equations, there is a simple way to handle pressure-driven demand and leakage simulation, and it does not require an initial solution vector which is sometimes critical to the convergence. Also, the proposed model does not require any complicated mathematical expression and operation.