Date of Award

7-1975

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Engineering (ME)

Department

Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics

Supervisor

A.A. Smith

Abstract

The project report examines the design criteria and procedures currently used in the design of sanitary sewer systems. A review of literature concentrates on procedures for the automated design of sanitary sewer systems. From the literature review, it is concluded that the cost optimisation of a variable layout together with details of sewer sizes and vertical alignment is not practicaI.

The major part of the project is the development of a program which employs dynamic programming in a multi-pass mode to optimise the cost of a branched sanitary sewer system of fixed layout. The program permits some user flexibility by allowing options for defining cost data and design criteria. Detailed documentation for operating the program is provided. A critical appraisal of the effectiveness of the algorithm and a comparison with other programs which use the dynamic programming technique is presented: A measure of the sensitivity of the optimal policy to changes in the cost structure is examined.