Design water supply networks with hydraulics, quality, cost, and operations in the loop.
ConduitNET turns EPANET-based water distribution modeling into a real-time, geo-referenced design and decision system for pressurized circular pipe networks.
See ConduitNET turn water distribution design into a live decision loop.
The flipbook is where users see map-based construction, DEM-derived elevations, automatic lengths, EPANET simulation, HGL and pressure dynamics, node/link inspection, water quality, operations, and cost feedback.
The focused platform for pressurized water pipe networks.
ConduitNET is purpose-built for pressurized water systems of different kinds — drinking-water distribution, irrigation networks, recycled-water (purple-pipe) systems, raw-water transmission mains, and industrial water systems. The defining characteristic is pressurized circular pipes carrying water under pressure, with junctions, reservoirs, tanks, pumps, valves, demands, controls, water quality, water age, and pressure-zone behavior all part of the design.
EPANET-based
Efficient hydraulic and water-quality modeling for fully pressurized pipe networks, suited to large municipal, regional, and project-scale systems — from drinking-water distribution to irrigation mains to long transmission systems.
Pattern-driven time dynamics
Demand patterns, reservoir head patterns, pump schedules, controls, and multipliers simulate system behavior across daily and operational cycles.
Hydraulics + water quality
Analyze flow, pressure, hydraulic grade line, tank levels, water age, concentration, disinfectant decay, and source/contaminant movement.
StormNET can model pressurized conduits. ConduitNET is optimized for supply networks.
The distinction is not simply pressurized vs unpressurized. StormNET is a physically general urban hydraulics platform. ConduitNET is operationally optimized for large pressurized water supply systems.
StormNET
- Dynamic routing and full urban drainage hydraulics
- Pressurized conduits, partially full flow, open channels, surface flooding
- 33 existing conduit shapes plus tabular cross sections
- Best for stormwater, sanitary/combined sewers, drainage, flooding, and mixed hydraulic regimes
ConduitNET
- Dedicated EPANET-based supply network simulation
- Fully pressurized circular water pipes
- Pattern-driven operational time variation
- Best for supply, pressure management, pumps, tanks, valves, quality, energy, and lifecycle cost
Pipes are long. Networks are large. Coupling is nonlinear. The modeling has to be too.
Two nonlinearities, opposite directions. The crossing is the design.
Water distribution networks respond nonlinearly to every design choice — and the trap is that two competing nonlinearities pull in opposite directions. Pipe cost rises nonlinearly with diameter through the chain diameter → operating pressure → material pressure class → wall thickness → material mass → cost: larger pipes need thicker walls to hold the same pressure rating, and the mass climbs fast. At very large diameters the curve steepens further — material strength requirements, specialized manufacturing, transport and handling constraints push unit cost up super-linearly for transmission mains. The CAPEX engineer sees the curve and reaches for smaller pipes — going from a 1600 mm transmission main to 800 mm looks like an obvious way to save material cost.
But headloss scales as 1/D⁵: that same diameter halving raises headloss by 2⁵ = 32× at the same flow. The pump that previously delivered service at modest pressure now has to overcome 32× the friction — and pumping energy compounds over the operating lifetime. The apparent CAPEX savings become OPEX explosions.
And the trap ripples outward. Smaller pipes force the rest of the system to compensate — larger pumps operating away from best efficiency point, higher tank heads, downstream pipes at higher pressure class, additional booster stations, multiplying control complexity. The “smaller pipe saves money” choice cascades through every component, multiplying costs the original reasoning never accounted for.
And the crossing point itself depends on financial and geographic assumptions. Pipe-and-pump sizing decisions reach decades into the future, where OPEX accumulates under the project's discounting framework. A higher interest rate shifts the crossing toward smaller pipes; a longer design life or rising real energy prices shift it toward larger pipes. Energy prices, grid reliability, and subsidy structures also vary widely across the world — where energy is cheap and reliable, the crossing shifts toward smaller pipes (let pumps work); where energy is expensive or volatile, it shifts toward larger pipes (invest in physical infrastructure that doesn't depend on uncertain energy supply). The same engineering problem has fundamentally different right answers in different places. ConduitNET's 258-region cost model isn't a feature for accurate quotation — it's a structural necessity for finding the crossing point that's correct for this location, not borrowed from a default that doesn't match.
The “smaller pipe = cheaper system” intuition is one of the most common temptations in distribution design — and one of the most expensive when wrong. Each design choice sits at the crossing point of two competing nonlinear curves, amplified by network-wide ripple effects, located by financial-geographic assumptions that vary widely. Long transmission mains compound thousands of these sensitivities; networks compound them through ripples; geographic context compounds them through the cost-and-energy landscape. For mega-projects, a single diameter choice can shift tens of millions of dollars in lifecycle cost — and human intuition cannot resolve this multi-layered sensitivity across thousands of pipes, especially when the assumptions themselves vary by location. This is why ConduitNET puts everything in one design loop: hydraulics, ripple effects, cost engine, and 258-region location-aware assumptions all recompute together as design changes propagate.
Couple design, hydraulics, and cost in a real-time iteration loop.
Designing for that reality requires that every design move recompute its hydraulic and economic consequences together — not after months of separate analysis. Change a diameter on one main and headloss, pumping energy, material cost, and lifecycle cost all shift together, in seconds. The engineer steers the design rather than running batch simulations.
This need is real. ConduitNET is the tool, anchored by EPANET.
Engineers responsible for water distribution and transmission design face this coupling problem on most projects — most acutely on the mega-projects above. And yet such a tool does not exist as established practice today. The components exist — EPANET hydraulic modeling, CAD packages, cost estimation, GIS overlays, and the data infrastructure built by national agencies over decades — each within its own tool. What's not yet established is the architectural integration. ConduitNET is that integrated computational steering system — the loop closing between design moves every ~30 seconds rather than between project phases. The engineer is inside the loop, watching nonlinear sensitivities respond as the design takes shape.
Design directly on terrain. Layout → simulate → visualize → cost → refine.
ConduitNET supports geo-referenced modeling where coordinates, lengths, and elevations are grounded in real spatial context. Every design increment moves through the same five-step cycle — closing in under a minute, repeated as many times as the engineer wants. The cycle is not a recommended workflow; it is what the platform runs every time anything in the network model changes.
Draw
Place junctions, reservoirs, tanks, pumps, valves, and pipes on a map.
Simulate
Run EPANET hydraulic and water-quality solutions across operating patterns.
Visualize
See 2D/3D system behavior, HGL, pressure, flows, and quality.
Cost
Evaluate CAPEX, OPEX, pump energy, pipe cost, storage, and lifecycle impacts.
Refine
Iterate immediately before decisions become construction costs.
Elevation drives pressure. Length drives headloss. Both drive cost.
Users do not build networks in abstraction. ConduitNET makes those relationships visible and computable from the beginning of design.
DEM-derived elevations
Node elevations can be derived from DEM, ensuring pressure and hydraulic grade behavior reflect actual terrain.
Automatic lengths and slopes
Pipe lengths come from the real-world path; slopes follow the terrain by default — sampled from the DEM along the route. No manual length entry, no abstracted profiles. Length drives headloss; slope shapes the HGL profile and trenching cost.
Map-based design
Networks are built and refined directly on a terrain-enabled landscape using interactive design tools.
Six visualization modes for hierarchical cognition.
Engineering judgment is hierarchical — humans understand systems top-down, from holistic pattern to element-specific detail. ConduitNET offers six visualization modes organized as that hierarchy. Each level answers a different kind of question, and no single mode is sufficient on its own.
Start with the holistic 3D space-time HGL — the whole pressure surface evolving over the operating day. Drop down only when the design question requires it. The six modes share one synchronized time slider, so the engineer triangulates across abstraction levels and the platform ensures the levels never disagree.
From holistic pattern to element-specific detail.
3D space-time HGL
The hydraulic grade line as a physical surface over the entire network, animated through time. Demand pulses propagate, pumps lift the HGL as visible steps, tank drawdown ripples outward, negative pressures dip below ground. Answers system-wide pressure topology and its evolution. Use first, always — scan to understand causal structure before drilling into elements. Can't show element-specific values (use hover) or numerical aggregates (use tabular).
Map view
Color-coded plan view at any chosen moment — where in plan the issues are. Answers: where in the network is the issue I identified holistically? Use after the 3D HGL surfaces a pattern. Can't show longitudinal structure (use profile) or causal chains (use 3D HGL).
Profile
The hydraulic profile along any path — where HGL drops sharply (friction-limited segments), where pumps lift it, where it dips under-pressurized. Answers: what's happening along this specific path? Critical for transmission mains and trunk routes. Can't show system-wide spatial pattern (use map or 3D HGL).
Time series
How a specific element behaves over time — daily demand pulse, weekly pattern, seasonal envelope. Answers: how does this element behave through the operating cycles I care about? Critical for tank cycling, pump scheduling, water-age investigation. Can't show system-wide patterns or causal structure across elements.
Real-time hover tooltips
Properties and instantaneous state at element granularity. Answers: what exactly is happening at this specific element right now? The always-available detail layer that complements every other mode — engineers use it constantly without it ever becoming the primary view. Can't show aggregated summaries (use tabular) or patterns spanning multiple elements.
Tabular reports
Numbers organized hierarchically — pipe headloss, zone pressure statistics, pump energy, system cost, compliance against thresholds. Answers: what numbers do I need for the engineering report or regulatory submission? Critical for documentation. Can't show spatial or temporal pattern; engineers who design from spreadsheets miss what the visualization hierarchy makes legible.
One simulation time. Six legibility modes.
The six modes share one underlying simulation state and one synchronized time slider. Drag the slider and the map color-codes update, the profile recomputes, the HGL surface animates, the tooltips refresh, the time-series cursor moves, the tabular numbers regenerate. Everything stays consistent because everything reads from the same simulation.
No single mode is sufficient.
Engineering judgment requires the hierarchy. The 3D HGL surfaces causal structure but doesn't give you the numbers for the report. The tabular report gives you the numbers but doesn't show pattern. The map localizes spatially but compresses magnitude. The profile shows the longitudinal hydraulic story but only along one path. The time series shows temporal dynamics at one point but loses spatial context. The hover tooltip gives element detail but no aggregation. Each level fails alone; the hierarchy succeeds.
Top-down workflow saves iteration cycles.
Engineers who start with the holistic 3D view recognize system-wide patterns first, then drill down with intent — knowing what they're looking for and why. Engineers who jump into element detail without holistic understanding waste cycles on local optimization of globally broken systems — fixing the wrong problem, missing the real cause, iterating without convergence. The hierarchy is not just six features; it is a workflow recommendation grounded in how engineering judgment actually works.
Common distribution-design traps the hierarchy makes visible at design time.
The competing-nonlinearities mechanism described earlier — pipe diameter against pumping energy, CAPEX against OPEX, ripple effects across the network — produces seven specific recurring patterns in distribution design. Each is annotated with the visualization mode that surfaces it.
Traps the hierarchy makes visible
- Smaller-pipe-saves-money trap — material savings dwarfed by lifetime pumping energy. Visible in the cost time series at OPEX granularity; missed in CAPEX-only static analysis.
- Oversized-pump trap — pumps operating far from best efficiency point; energy cost compounds over decades. Visible in pump time-series + tabular energy totals.
- Under-pressurized service zones — pressure drops at peak demand that static analysis misses. Visible immediately in the 3D HGL as the surface dips below the floor at peak hour; never visible in steady-state snapshots.
- Over-pressurized service zones — leakage and pipe-failure risk hidden by averaged analysis. Visible in 3D HGL highs + map view + element-level pressure tooltips.
- Stagnation and water-age zones — slow circulation that compromises water quality. Visible in time-resolved water-age map; invisible without temporal simulation.
- Tank cycling instability — operating patterns that create reliability and water-age problems. Visible in the tank time-series synchronized with the 3D HGL animation; the cause-and-effect chain becomes legible.
- Control-rule cascades — nonlinear system response to valve and pump rules under varying demand. Visible only when the holistic 3D view + time slider lets the engineer trace the propagation.
Hydraulics, water quality, operations, and cost — together.
Network behavior emerges from the interaction of pipes, pumps, tanks, valves, demands, reservoir heads, control rules, and time patterns. ConduitNET computes hydraulics and water quality together as the system operates, and derives all four cost levels — CAPEX, OPEX, lifecycle, unit water cost — from the same network model the hydraulic engine reads.
For mega-projects, small changes in any dimension can shift tens of millions of dollars in lifecycle cost. Test decisions before they become infrastructure — reveal better alternatives early.
Water age, stagnation, source tracking — alongside hydraulics.
ConduitNET integrates water quality directly into the design and analysis loop — water age, stagnation, disinfectant decay, source tracking, and contaminant movement — computed from the same network state as hydraulics, in the same simulation.
Water age and stagnation
Identify slow circulation, storage behavior, and low-turnover zones.
Contaminant / source tracking
Analyze how substances, sources, or quality signals move through the network.
Quality and operations
Understand how design, storage, pumping, and controls affect system safety.
Operations is a design dimension.
Pumps, tanks, valves, and control rules behave differently under real demand patterns than under design-storm steady state. ConduitNET treats operational behavior as part of the design — visible alongside sizing and layout, not added afterward.
Tanks and storage
Tank levels, cycling, and storage sizing affect pressure reliability, water age, resilience, and cost.
Pumps and energy
Pump sizing, schedules, controls, and head requirements affect service reliability and long-term operating cost.
Valves and controls
Valve settings and rule-based controls introduce nonlinear system response that intuition alone cannot reliably capture.
Physics-based, bottom-up, location-aware.
Because the competing nonlinearities above couple CAPEX and OPEX, cost has to live in the design loop, not after it. ConduitNET derives all four cost levels from the same network model the hydraulic engine reads. The engineering physics is universal; 258 regional cost presets adapt the pricing to different economies, auto-detected from the model's georeferenced location.
CAPEX
- Pipes — material mass from diameter, pressure class, wall thickness
- Pumps, tanks, valves, fittings, meters, appurtenances
- Trenching, excavation, bedding, backfill, reinstatement
- Civil works, site preparation, structural foundations
- Engineering, administration, contingency
OPEX
- Pump electricity from hydraulic power × operating hours × tariff
- Maintenance, inspection, monitoring
- Replacement and rehabilitation cycles
- Tank, pump-station, and valve upkeep
Lifecycle cost
- Present value of future operating cost
- Design life and discount-rate assumptions
- Capital-intensive versus operations-intensive alternatives
- Grid, solar, and hybrid energy lifecycle comparisons
Unit water cost
- Cost per cubic meter delivered
- Cost per network length or service area
- Cost per population served
- Annualized cost for cross-project comparison
Location-aware pricing. Intelligent default to project-specific.
258 regional cost presets cover countries worldwide, US states, and sub-national zones — so the same network model can be compared from Detroit to Lagos to Singapore. The platform auto-detects the regional context from the georeferenced model location and supplies intelligent defaults for labor, materials, electricity, solar irradiance, grid reliability, and construction conditions.
Every default is reviewable and editable. Start with the auto-detected regional pricing; override with known local values; refine with contractor bids and project-specific data. The cost model evolves like the hydraulic model — a useful default immediately, improving as real data becomes available.
Beyond EPANET's built-in energy cost.
EPANET includes useful pump energy-cost calculations. ConduitNET keeps that operational insight and extends far beyond it — a design-stage economic decision system coupled to hydraulics, water quality, operations, and visualization, not just an energy calculation.
Distribution doesn't stand alone. Neither does your work.
ConduitNET is one of five expressions of the MAGNET4WATER architecture. StormNET ⊃ ConduitNET is the sister pipe-network relationship — pipe-network mathematical superset. IGW-NET will couple to ConduitNET's cost model next release, supplying water-table depth for excavation and trench dewatering. DataNET federates additional context worldwide, alongside the always-on preprocessed multi-resolution database that direct-links ConduitNET to essential layers. The cards below cover each relationship; the homepage Cross-Platform Guide documents the full family. And — when you choose — your work joins the Global Model Network and the Model Observatory, where your published work becomes the foundation for the next person's work.
StormNET ⊃ ConduitNET SISTER PLATFORM
StormNET and ConduitNET overlap in pressurized pipe-network modeling. The relationship is a mathematical superset: ConduitNET is the focused pure pipe-network platform; StormNET handles the broader regime — pressurized AND free-surface AND transitions between them — with full 1D unsteady Saint-Venant. Architectural principle: don't reach for the more general solver when the simpler one is correct. ConduitNET for pressurized supply network design across scales; StormNET when free-surface flow, partly-full conduits, regime transitions, or non-circular geometries matter. Both share a physics-based, bottom-up, location-aware, water-table-aware cost-model architecture; StormNET extends cost coverage to LIDs, subcatchment-scale elements, storage units, and hydraulic structures. The solver physics — why the EPANET engine is the right fit for pressurized supply networks — is detailed in the next section.
Mixed networks — build directly in StormNET NO FILE HANDOFF
Large-scale water distribution and long-distance transfers often involve mixed networks — pressurized pipes in complex terrain combined with free-surface gravity sections where topography permits (cost-effective and energy-efficient), partly-full conduits, regime transitions where pipes surcharge or unsurcharge, open channels into reservoir intakes, harvested-water inflows into the supply system. For these mixed systems, build directly in StormNET from the start — its 1D unsteady Saint-Venant solver handles pressurized and free-surface flow in one framework, including the transitions between them. There is no file handoff between ConduitNET and StormNET; choose the right platform at the start.
DataNET FEDERATED ROUTE (next release)
The federated route to worldwide water-data services, alongside the always-on preprocessed multi-resolution database that already direct-links ConduitNET to essential layers (terrain). Direct in-platform DataNET integration for ConduitNET coming next release. Accurate terrain is the foundation of every HGL surface — ConduitNET currently draws live-linked from USGS 3DEP Bare Earth DEM Dynamic across the US (multi-resolution: 1m LiDAR where collected, 10m seamless elsewhere, 5m IfSAR in Alaska), SRTM 30m globally, and ASTER 1000/300/90m globally. GEDTM30 30m bare-earth DTM globally coming next release. When DataNET integration ships, ConduitNET users will be able to bring higher-resolution data — sub-1m LiDAR DEM in North America, municipal GIS, regional cost data, demand pattern libraries, and project-specific overrides — federated in dynamically via WMS/WFS/WCS with no separate import step. The two data routes are complementary by design.
Sister platforms in the family
In future releases, IGW-NET will provide water-table depth to ConduitNET's cost model for excavation, trench dewatering, and infrastructure-cost adjustments. ConduitNET has no direct coupling to SwaNET — that platform addresses watershed-scale surface water (a different physics regime). The Cross-Platform Guide documents the full family — sister watershed platforms, the recharge handoff, the water-table fanout, sister pipe-network platforms, the unsaturated zone across three platforms, and the two complementary data routes (preprocessed multi-resolution database + DataNET federation).
Your work joins the network.
Distribution designs can stay private to your project, shared with your team, or published to the Global Model Network. Published models become accessible to other practitioners and to students learning the craft. Local pipe pressure-class libraries, regional demand patterns, or utility-specific cost benchmarks served from your own GeoServer node — visualized in DataNET by URL, transferred directly to any modeling platform — stay on your own infrastructure with access under your control. Every new participant who shares, makes the network slightly richer for everyone else.
Model Observatory
Publish your ConduitNET model to the Observatory in under a minute — a feature shared across all five platforms. Your work appears as a pin on a global map, styled by model type.
Click any pin → a local Observatory page opens with:
- Your network graphics and downloadable model file
- An AI-generated report grounded in the model file (demand patterns, pressure-class selections, cost benchmarks, performance)
- A live USGS National Water Network overlay — source-water gauges, water-quality time series, supply context — as statistics, historical series, and realtime
Private or public — your choice. The USGS overlay appears on every Observatory page regardless of platform.
On the roadmap: auto-generated DataNET fusion, Cesium 3D, lidar.
Pipe network dynamics. Tank water balance. Surge protection by design.
ConduitNET — anchored by EPANET — simulates pressurized water distribution network dynamics: flows and pressures through pipes, demand patterns shifting through the operating day, pumps cycling on and off, valves opening and closing under control rules, tanks filling and draining, water quality and contaminant transport evolving as the system operates. The platform models how the network actually behaves over hours, days, and seasons.
Pipe network dynamics
Flows and pressures throughout the network respond to changing demands, pump operation, control rules, and valve settings. The platform captures pressure reliability across the operating day, pump duty cycles and energy cost over time, water age and quality distribution, contaminant transport, and operational scenarios from normal operations through demand growth, supply variability, and component failure.
Tank water balance equalizes supply and demand
Tanks are the system's time-varying storage — they absorb the mismatch between supply and demand across the operating cycle. Tank levels rise when supply exceeds demand and fall when demand exceeds supply, driven by demand patterns, pump schedules, reservoir heads, and control rules. The tank water balance is explicitly simulated through the operating period — capturing tank cycling, storage sizing, pump duty cycles tied to fill schedules, pressure reliability when tanks draw down, and water-age effects when tanks turn over slowly.
Why ConduitNET and StormNET use different solvers
Both platforms simulate fully transient network behavior. Both assume incompressible fluid. The distinction is which physics regime is the right fit for the question — not which platform handles more, and not transient-vs-steady (both are transient).
ConduitNET runs the EPANET engine — an efficient way to solve Saint-Venant + tank water balance for pressurized pipe networks. The network is fully transient: tanks fill and drain, pumps cycle on and off, demands vary by hour and day, pressure zones shift as the system operates. Storage change in pipes is ignored — negligibly small on distribution timescales for incompressible flow through always-full pipes, so pressurized pipes respond essentially instantaneously to changes in upstream and downstream conditions. Storage change in tanks is integrated transiently — tanks are the system's time-varying storage, equalizing supply and demand across the operating cycle, along with water-quality state.
StormNET uses full 1D Saint-Venant hydraulics — the right physics when flow regime itself is what's being computed. Use StormNET when the system involves free-surface (open-channel) flow, mixed regimes that transition between pressurized and unpressurized (pipes that fill and surcharge during a storm, then drain), non-circular or irregular cross-sections (box culverts, trapezoidal channels, natural streams), or surface drainage and catchment hydrology that must be simulated together with the conveyance (rainwater harvesting where catchment runoff is part of the system; urban drainage; combined sewer systems).
Water hammer is addressed by design — not by simulation
For practical pressurized-network design, second-scale pipe dynamics don't matter — what matters is how the network behaves through the operating day, week, and season, which is exactly what ConduitNET simulates. The one exception is water hammer: sub-second pressure waves from sudden valve closure, pump trips, or emergency shutdown. Water hammer requires fluid compressibility and pipe elasticity at millisecond scales — a different physics regime entirely, and one that neither ConduitNET nor StormNET models. Both platforms assume incompressible fluid.
In practice this is not a gap. Pressurized networks are never sized based on water-hammer events. They are sized for normal operating conditions, which is what the network simulation evaluates. Water hammer is managed through well-established engineering design practice: surge tanks, surge protectors, air-release and air-vacuum valves, slow-closing valves, pump soft-start controls, pressure-relief valves, and conservative pressure-class selection. For projects that require numerical water-hammer verification on specific scenarios, dedicated transient solvers (Bentley HAMMER, KYPipe Transient, the open-source WHAMO from the US Army Corps of Engineers) operate as standard companion tools. ConduitNET designs export through EPANET INP format for that workflow.
See the system before it fails.
ConduitNET supports emergency and resilience analysis for operational stress, infrastructure disruption, and water security scenarios — the same network simulation, run under stress conditions.
Rupture and failure
Simulate pipe breaks, pump outages, pressure loss, service interruption, and system reconfiguration.
Earthquake and disruption
Evaluate how seismic or infrastructure damage affects pressure zones, tanks, service areas, and emergency supply.
Water security
Analyze contamination scenarios, source tracking, operational response, and vulnerability under emergency conditions.
Network simulation plus surge-protection design. That's complete distribution design practice.
ConduitNET simulation + engineering design rules for water hammer = complete distribution design practice. This is how pressurized water distribution is actually designed: full network-dynamics simulation for the operational behavior over time (what ConduitNET does — sizing pipes and pumps, configuring storage and pressure zones, evaluating energy and lifecycle cost, exploring operational alternatives, assessing water quality, quantifying resilience), combined with established engineering design rules and protective devices for surge scenarios. Two halves of the same professional workflow — and ConduitNET supports the simulation half within a real-time, geo-referenced, cost-aware design environment.
EPANET enables efficient water distribution simulation. ConduitNET makes it interactive, visual, cost-aware, and decision-ready.
ConduitNET wraps proven EPANET hydraulics into a real-time, terrain-enabled design environment with hierarchical visualization analytics — where hydraulics, water quality, operations, cost, and resilience are explored together in one continuous loop.