WaterCAD

Water distribution modeling and management

Skelebrator Module

Network simplification for water distribution systems

After building a water distribution model from comprehensive GIS and CAD datasets, Skelebrator helps you simplify it to different levels of complexity to efficiently tackle a wider range of modeling applications.

While an all-inclusive model may be appropriate to perform large-scale water quality studies, it includes unnecessary complexity for everyday pressure zoning analysis.

Skelebrator automatically removes network complexity while maintaining connectivity, hydraulic equivalence and reallocating assigned demands to your specification.

Skelebrator is one of the available efficiency and optimization modules for WaterCAD and it is included with WaterGEMS.

Take a look at the Toronto Water Integrated Network Skeletonization (TWINS) case study.

Features and Benefits of Purchasing Skelebrator

Network connectivity

One of the defining features of Skelebrator is the intelligent network algorithm that automatically prevents network disconnections that could invalidate the model. This approach is vastly superior to simple database queries that remove pipes based solely on attributes that meet user-defined criteria, potentially breaking network connectivity and removing critical links and nodes.

Hydraulic equivalence

While it is a fairly simple task to turn a 25,000-pipe model into a 5,000-pipe model, it is much more difficult to do this while maintaining the network behavior with the same degree of accuracy achieved by the more complex model. Skelebrator allows you to perform a greater degree of skeletonization while maintaining the hydraulic behavior of the larger, more explicit model. This is accomplished by allowing pipes with varying attributes to be merged into a single new pipe that accounts for the differing attributes, thereby retaining the behavior of that area of the network and, by extension, the model as a whole.

Skeletonization types

Data scrubbing: Automatically remove orphaned nodes and eliminate pipes based on user-defined criteria such as length and diameter.

Branch trimming: Remove short pipe segments including dead ends, service connections, and hydrant leads. The branch trimming operation allows you to set the number of trimming levels and automatically transfer the removed demands to the upstream node. Trimming criteria are fully customizable and can include any combination of pipe and junction node removal criteria.

Series pipe removal: Automatically eliminate unnecessary pipe segmentation by dissolving interior nodes based on any combination of user-defined pipe and junction conditions. The series pipe removal operation allows you to set the maximum number of removal levels, indicate the dominant pipe criteria, specify hydraulic equivalency, select from four load redistribution strategies, and indicate what to do with minor losses.

Parallel pipe removal: Consolidate parallel pipes into one hydraulically equivalent pipe. The parallel pipe removal options allow you to specify the maximum level of pipe removal based on loop sensitivity, set dominant pipe criteria, indicate equivalent pipe methods and minor loss strategies, and define custom criteria for pipe removal.

Other defining features

Undertake model skeletonization through an intuitive, integrated user interface
Preview skeletonization results graphically before applying them to your model
Preview groups of elements to be removed or each element individually
Mark important elements such as large industries as non-removable so they are immune to skeletonization
Choose between automated or manual skeletonization options
Save all the settings on your skeletonization runs as reusable templates
Specify flexible tolerances and conditions to control every step of the skeletonization process
Skeletonize files from WaterCAD, WaterGEMS, GIS, CAD and other data sources-all from within the same environment and with identical, robust functionality.