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[Display omitted] This paper presents an extended methodology for the design of flexible water network (FWN). In many water network systems, parameters of the water-using processes (e.g. flow rate, concentration, etc.) vary due to operational changes. Hence, it is important to synthesize a FWN that can absorb these changes, so to ensure business sustainability. In this paper, the recently established corner point method for FWN synthesis is extended to cater the discrete way of process parameters change. The newly proposed methodology ensures the synthesized FWN to achieve the intended objective, i.e. minimum fresh water intake and minimum total pipeline length, while satisfying the various process constraints (e.g. flow rate, concentration, etc.). To address the multiple-objective problem, a three-step optimization method has been developed. The corner point method is also extended to synthesize a FWN that achieves the minimum total annualized costs (TAC). A literature case study was used to show the usefulness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new optimization model for the synthesis of direct reuse/recycle water networks with data uncertainties. In this case, data uncertainties were originated from the varying parameters of the water sources and sinks, which fluctuate within a given range of values. The aim of the method is to design an optimum flexible water network (FWN) that ensures minimum fresh water consumption and yet fulfilling all process constraints and uncertain parameters. The resulting FWN also features the minimum number of pipelines, which will ease process operation and control. Due to the complexity of the problem, multistep solving method based on theorem of corner points has been developed. The FWN obtained using the proposed method also includes information on the maximum flow rate in the pipelines, which is essential for detailed network design stage. The resulting model is a mixed integer linear problem (MILP), which may be solved to obtain global optimum solution. Two case studies were used to elucidate the newly proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]