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In principle it is possible to calculate water piping schemes by hand. For this see the article about Hydraulic formulas for gravity feed water systems.
On various junctions in your gravity feed water system you will have to control the water pressure.
EPANET is a free software that models the hydraulic and water quality behavior of water distribution piping systems. By using a simple graphical user interface EPANET allows you to locate the elements of water distribution systems (pipes, nodes (pipe junctions), pumps, valves, and storage tanks or reservoirs). The fact that you can download EPANET for free, allows you to try if the program fits your demands.
| Software Name | EPANET |
|---|---|
| Source | U.S. Environmetal Protection Agency |
| System Requirements | Windows 95, 98, MT, 2000, XP, Vista |
| Download size | 2,5 MB including manual |
| Cost | Freeware |
Members of GrassrootsWiki.org e.V. are developing a water distribution planning and simulation software. We see the advantages of a free open source software solution in particular EPANET. Water Solutions uses the computational engine of EPANET. But we are willing to extend the usability, the functionality and to ensure that it will run on all popular operating systems. We have to rewrite the graphical user interface in a modern programming language with modern technologies and tools to achieve our objective. We also take the advantage of other open source software projects.
The project is under construction and released yet.
| Software Name | Water Solutions |
| Source | http://sourceforge.net/projects/watersolutions/ |
| Planned System Requirements | Windows, Mac OS, Linux
Mobile: Symbian, Windows CE |
| License | GPL |
| Cost | Freeware |
WaterCAD is a professional software for planning water distribution systems. It is provided by Bentley Systems (United Kingdom). The software is expensive (around 5.000 US$ per license) and is developed for larger water distribution systems and not specifically for small grassroots solutions. In principial it works with small water distribution systems as well, but it demands profound skills from the user. It is possible to connect the data of water piping systems with other map data like topographically data in AutoCAD or geographic information systems (GIS, see Wikipedia).
The hydraulic formulas WaterCAD is based on are the same which used by EPANET. The most advantage of WaterCAD is the much more convenient graphical user interface (GUI).
| Software Name | WaterCAD |
|---|---|
| Source | Bentley Systems |
| System Requirements | Windows 2000, XP, Vista |
| Cost | approx. 5.000 US$ |
KYPipe has been developing pipe network analysis software for over 35 years. This sophisticated analysis algorithms, used to analyze Steady State, Surge, Gas and Steam systems, has been perfected by leading experts in this field and is designed to model any size project. One common user interface (Pipe2006 / Pipe2008 / Pipe2010) links all these calculation models.
Technical support for users is provided at no additional cost. You may contact any one of a number of software developers and engineers with your questions about using the Pipe2000 suite of models.
Advantages
Water_piping_systems