An approach to approximate the longitudinal profile of urban drainage networks from incomplete data
In order to realise hydraulic simulations of urban drainage networks, data describing the networks are needed. Very often, some of the invert levels are missing. Usually, design departments carry out an incomplete survey of the network invert levels and then linearly interpolate the missing ones. Our objective is to propose a more precise method to interpolate unknown invert levels. The method we propose in this paper involves computing (interpolating) the missing invert levels by using three types of information: (network) known data, constraints and criteria. Known data correspond to the (assumed) available information. Constraints are construction rules that any urban drainage network must respect. Criteria are optimisation rules based on observations of real urban drainage networks. To solve this problem, we use genetic algorithms because these algorithms are able to work with many variables, real numbers and non-linear functions. Tests have been carried out on urban drainage networks in Annequin, Bapaume and Lyon. The results obtained are quite good for long or short reaches, and for steep or nearly flat slopes. It is even possible to identify the presence of negative slopes. In all cases, the proposed method of interpolation gives better results than the linear interpolation.