Mass imbalances in EPANET water-quality simulations

Davis, Michael J.; Janke, Robert; Taxon, Thomas N.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/dwes-11-25-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/dwes-11-25-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/dwes-11-25-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

Research article

|

06 Apr 2018

Research article |

| 06 Apr 2018

Mass imbalances in EPANET water-quality simulations

Michael J. Davis, Robert Janke, and Thomas N. Taxon

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Apr 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 26 Sep 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC1: 'Ratio of hydraulic Time step to Water Quality timestep is not addressed.', Patrick Moore, 26 Sep 2017
- SC3: 'Response to comments by P. Moore on the paper “Mass imbalances in EPANET water-quality simulations”', Robert Janke, 06 Oct 2017
SC2: 'Remarks on Event-Driven Description and Recommendations', Sam Hatchett, 26 Sep 2017
- SC4: 'Response to comments by S. Hatchett on the paper “Mass imbalances in EPANET waterquality simulations”', Robert Janke, 06 Oct 2017
EC1: 'Editor comment', Ran Shang, 19 Oct 2017
- AC1: 'Mass imbalances in EPANET water-quality simulations - dwes-2017-28 - Responses to Final Comments', Robert Janke, 02 Nov 2017

Short summary

EPANET does not always conserve constituent mass during water-quality simulations. The failure to conserve mass can result in significant errors in constituent concentrations. We document the occurrence of mass imbalances, explain why they occur, provide recommendations for minimizing mass imbalances, and present a preliminary water-quality algorithm for use in EPANET that always conserves mass. Our paper should be of interest to anyone who performs water-quality simulations using EPANET.