Application of cellular automata to sewer network optimization problems

A cellular automata approach is introduced in this paper for the optimal design of sewernetwork problems. the solution of sewer network optimization problems requires the determination ofpipe diameters and average pipe cover depths, minimizing the total cost of the sewer network subject tooperational constraints. one constraint of the problem, namely, the maximum relative depth of flow, isfirst used to define the pipe diameters in terms of the pipe slope and, hence, the nodal elevation of thenetwork. as a result, the sewer network optimization problem is redefined, in terms of the network nodalelevations, and the resulting problem is solved using a cellular automata (ca) approach. the nodes of thenetwork are used as the ca cell, with the corresponding elevations as ca cell states. the updating ruleof the proposed ca is then derived by requiring the stationary total penalized objective function of theproblem, with respect to the cell state. the proposed method is used to solve two benchmark examplesand the results are compared to those obtained by other methods. the results indicate that the proposedmethod is highly efficient compared to alternative methods, while producing comparable results.