Modeling Storm Water Pipe Leakage: Transient vs. Steady-State Groundwater Flow

Storm water pipe leakage in an urban environment may lead to severe problems such as a reduced pipe system capacity. Detailed physically-based numerical models are necessary to understand leakage and mitigate risks. In the present study, we present the application of a physically-based pipe flow-groundwater flow model (full model) for storm water leakage in an urban catchment. We further present the application of a simplified model, in which the transient groundwater model is neglected and the soil domain is represented by a steady-state pressure distribution. We compare both models based on a series of simulations in the same urban catchment. We conclude that the simplified model is as accurate as the full model for the given setup. Comparing both models, the computation time could be reduced from several hours to one minute.