This paper assesses the reliability performance of networks designed on the basis of flow patterns derived from three entropy based formulae which have recently been used as measures of reliability/redundancy for water distribution networks. The three different flow patterns are inferred on the basis of the maximum entropy principle by maximising each of the three entropy formulae subject to nodal balance constraints. The resulting maximum entropy flow patterns represent the most invulnerable flow distribution of a network for the given nodal demands and inflows associated with each of the entropy measures. To investigate the reliability/redundancy implications of each of the maximum entropy flow patterns, those same flow patterns are used to size the components of the water distribution network by a linear programming model. The hydraulic and associated reliability performances of the resulting networks, as measured by the amount of water that system can supply to customers in various failure scenarios, are then assessed using an improved network simulation model.
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