Optimal Design or Rehabilitation of an Irrigation Project’s Pipe Network

This chapter deals with the optimal design of the most expensive part of a pressurised irrigation system, i.e., its pipe network. The problem of calculating the optimal pipe size diameters of an irrigation network has attracted the attention of many researchers and designers. During the process of designing an irrigation pipe network, the hydraulic engineer will face the problem of determining the diameters of the pipes forming the distribution network. For economic reasons, the pipe diameter should be as small as possible; on the other hand, the diameter must be large enough to ensure service pressure at the feed points (Labye et al., 1988; Lammadalena and Sagardoy, 2000).