Intelligent Emergency Control for the Middle Route of China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project

Huinanzhuang pump is the only booster pump of the Middle Route of China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MR-SNWDP), the pump undertakes the task of supplying 75% of urban water to the capital city Beijing of China. Without accurate hydraulic responses and emergency strategies, the operators or decision-makers are unable to respond to hydraulic changes effectively in case of sudden failure of the pump. In this paper, an Emergency Control System focusing on solving the Saint Venant equation based on the computational finite difference method, was developed for a complexed water diversion project composed of open channels, escape gates, check gates, pump, outlets, and bypass pipes, to analyze the hydraulic response and the effect of various emergency control strategies. The results show that when the pump fails and the discharge decreases from 50m3/s to 0 suddenly. (1) Without any operations, downstream water level will rise at a speed of 0.4m/h rapidly. (2) The emergency control strategy combined opening bypass pipe, opening escape gate and reducing upstream discharge can control downstream water level effectively, and initial reduction of upstream discharge is not less than 10m3/s or constant reduction of upstream discharge is not less than 5m3/s. (3) The emergency control strategy of constant reduction of upstream discharge is 25m3/s and bypass pipes, escape gate are both opened immediately, can minimize the waste or escape water. (4) When the pump has conditions to restore normal operation, upstream discharge should restore to the original value before 1.3h gradually, and mode of the pump can be switched to the normal operation until increased upstream discharge spreads to the pump.