Trace isolation boundaries for every pipe in your network, calculate the resulting customer outages, and identify the assets where failures carry the highest operational consequence.
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Valve criticality
V-114
Every water main repair, whether a planned cut-in or an emergency burst, requires answering critical operational questions: Which boundary valves must close? How large is the resulting isolation zone? How many customers will lose supply? During an emergency, relying on static schematics or institutional memory often leads to overly broad isolations and unexpected downstream outages.
Valve criticality analysis calculates these impacts preemptively across the entire network. For every pipe, epanet-js traces the necessary isolation valves, calculates the trapped footprint, and identifies all customers who will lose service—both within the immediate zone and in dependent areas downstream.
Taking a single pipe out of service requires isolating a complete network segment bounded by operational valves. epanet-js utilizes a topological trace to traverse the network geometry and pinpoint the exact valves required to seal the segment.
Running this analysis system-wide transforms your map into an inventory of vulnerability. It clearly highlights where isolation segments are tight and well-controlled, versus sprawling, under-valved areas where a single burst necessitates shutting down entire neighborhoods.
Trace
Connectivity
Evaluating risk by isolated pipe length fails to capture the true operational consequence: customer impact. Because epanet-js maps individual meter points directly to pipes, every simulated isolation generates a precise count of affected customers and total lost demand.
Crucially, the algorithm also identifies propagating failures. If closing boundary valves severs the only transmission feed to a downstream pressure zone, those secondary outages are included in the risk profile. This highlights where redundant feeds are strictly necessary.
Criticality identifies the risk; operational modeling mitigates it. The topological logic driving the criticality scan translates directly into actionable shutdown plans.
When a repair is scheduled, select the target main. The model instantly generates the boundary valve list, calculates the customer notification footprint, and allows you to test whether opening a secondary boundary valve will successfully backfeed the isolated customers during the repair window.
Shutdown plan
Main repair
Identify the specific boundary valves required to isolate any pipe, determined automatically from network topology rather than manual tracing.
Quantify outage impacts directly by the number of customer meters affected and total demand lost, rather than just pipe length.
Highlight segments with outsized isolation footprints or no redundant supply feeds, pinpointing where system vulnerability is highest.
The same topological logic that identifies critical valves seamlessly transitions into configuring planned field shutdowns.
Identify single points of failure and rank valve criticality on your own model. Launch epanet-js free, or schedule a technical demo.
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Utilities leverage valve criticality data to target infrastructure spending where it yields the highest return on resilience. It allows maintenance crews to prioritize their valve exercising programs on assets whose failure would cause catastrophic outages. Engineering consultants use the tool to visually demonstrate single points of failure to clients and justify capital budgets for new isolation valves and redundant transmission loops.
Because criticality runs on the same unified model, the insights feed directly into operational modeling for emergency response and into capital planning when structural network upgrades are required.
Resilience analysis connects directly to daily operations.
Frequently asked questions about valve criticality analysis.
Run automated valve criticality analysis across your network geometry. Launch epanet-js or schedule a technical walk-through.
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