Urban networks

Whether combined or separate, underground stormwater and wastewater networks feature many components that often require meticulous design studies, such as storm overflows, automatic valves, drop structures, convergences, confluences and flow distribution chambers.

What we do

The combined or separate free-surface stormwater and wastewater networks that run beneath our towns and cities are complex and interconnected. The special structures fitted along them dictate the water level profiles and must hence be carefully designed. In some cases, three-dimensional hydraulic modelling is necessary in order to guarantee more accurate results or adjust dimensional designs as precisely as possible.

For these reasons Artelia is regularly asked by in-house colleagues or external clients to perform precise physical model studies of such structures, which include:

  • side weir overflows for stormwater
  • gated structures
  • drop structures
  • bypasses
  • pumping systems
  • confluences or diffluences
  • flow distribution chambers
  • siphons
  • etc.

Our expertise

Artelia’s laboratory has been designing, building and studying physical models of urban hydraulic structures and networks of all types for several decades, and has developed in-depth expertise of the following technical fields:

  • free-surface or pressurised flows, in underground culverts and channels
  • overflows over fixed or mobile weirs, under gates
  • measurement of pressures or forces and their fluctuations over time
  • steady flow conditions
  • unsteady flow conditions: fast (pump tripping) or slow (valve closure/opening)
  • behaviour of floating debris
  • behaviour of sediment and solids: tendency to be deposited or entrained
  • characterisation of screen clogging and quantification of impacts on hydraulic behaviour
  • optimisation of distribution structures to ensure that flow is apportioned in accordance with requirements.