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technical BR
EPANET Extended to Include Multi-Species Modeling
Background
The U.S. EPA's National Homeland Security Research
Center (NHSRC) Water Infrastructure Protection
Division (WIPD), headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio,
conducts and coordinates research to improve the
security of drinking water and wastewater treatment,
distribution, and sources. To counter threats against
water systems, the NHSRC is developing the Threat
Ensemble Vulnerability Assessment (TEVA) Program,
a computer program that models and evaluates water
system threats and vulnerabilities. TEVA relies on the
EPA's EPANET hydraulic and water quality software
package. EPANET has been extended to support
homeland security research efforts.
EPANET-MSX
EPANET is used in homeland security research to model contamination threats to water systems.
Historically, EPANET has been limited to tracking the dynamics of a single chemical transported
through a network of pipes and storage tanks, such as a fluoride used in a tracer study or free
chlorine used in a disinfection decay study.
Recently, the NHSRC released a new extension to EPANET called EPANET-MSX (Multi-Species
extension) that allows for the consideration of multiple interacting species in the bulk flow and on the
pipe walls. This capability has been incorporated into both a stand-alone executable program as well
as a toolkit library of functions that programmers can use to build customized applications.
The multi-species modeling extension to EPANET requires a new MSX input file in which the user
specifies the mathematical expressions governing the reaction dynamics. EPANET-MSX parses the
input file and stores and structures the data for efficient evaluation. Newton-Raphson and Runge-
Kutta algorithms into the water quality modules are used to solve the differential-algebraic equations
that specify the reaction dynamics.
This structure allows users the flexibility to model a wide range of chemical reactions of interest to
water utilities, consultants, and researchers. EPANET-MSX enables users to model free chlorine
loss, the formation of disinfection byproducts, nitrification dynamics, disinfectant residuals, and
adsorption on pipe walls. Homeland security researchers are particularly interested in modeling the
fate and transport of contaminant threats in drinking water distribution systems.
MS-EPANET Software and User's Manual
The EPANET-MSX software and User's Manual is now available by following the link at:
http://www.epa.gov/nhsrc/water/teva.html.
EPANET-MSX is distributed in a compressed zip file that contains a command line executable,
several libraries of functions, and a User's Manual. The executable can be used to run water quality
analyses without any additional programming effort. The function library can be used in conjunction
with the existing EPANET Programmer's Toolkit to develop customized applications. At this point in
time, the software has not been integrated into a Windows interface, but this is expected to happen at
some point in the future.
(more)
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The software is subject to copyright. It is free software and can be redistributed and/or modified under
the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.
For more information, visit the NHSRC Web site at www.epa.gov/nhsrc, and the TEVA Research
Program site at http://www.epa.gov/nhsrc/water/teva.html.
Technical Contacts: Regan Murray (513) 569-7031, Murray.Regan@epa.gov
Robert Janke (513) 569-7160, Janke.Robert@epa.gov
Communications Contact: Kathy Nickel (513) 569-7955, nickel.kathy@epa.gov
July 2007
EPA/600/S-06/019
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