UBC Emergency Water Supply System : Final Design Report
Creators: name: Chung, Alexander
name: Lauron, Lean
name: Ng, Justin
name: Yau, Adrian
name: Yeung, Aaron
name: Zhang, Yezi
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2018

description: Context and Overarching Objectives: As of 2017, the UBC Vancouver Campus hosts approximately 55,000 people per day with long term growth expected to peak at around 70,000 people per day. A substantial amount of people at UBC, therefore, rely on UBC’s Energy and Water Services Unit to provide them with water. Although UBC owns and operates its own water distribution system, water is currently sourced from the nearby Greater Vancouver Water District (GVWD) Sasamat Reservoir in Pacific Spirit Park. From Sasamat Reservoir, water is directed towards UBC through a series of pipes. A failure east of this area would essentially hamstring inflows of water into UBC. The overarching objective of our project, therefore, is to design a water supply system that can provide water to the UBC Vancouver area in the event of a Metro Vancouver system failure. Key Issues and Considerations: The proposed design is constrained by various technical and regulatory requirements such as those outlined in UBC’s Technical Guidelines, as well as municipal bylaws and regulations, and city ordinances. Other considerations include land use guidelines, tie-in and compatibility with the existing water supply system, potential for future expansion, and sustainable development. Furthermore, given the scope and size of this project, the constructability of the project and its various infrastructure components is particularly important. In considering these issues, our team will discuss economic considerations including capital cost, operating costs, and lifecycle costs. General Methodology: The design of our project, in general, followed an iterative solution methodology; to ensure the overall system components were designed cohesively, we adjusted necessary components and parameters of our project to meet all non-negotiable design criteria and to maximize meeting all negotiable design criteria. Key Features of Design: Our design features two below grade reinforced concrete reservoirs with a total capacity of approximately 30 million litres, two new watermain alignments, and a booster station. The design is sized for 72 hours of reduced institutional and residential water usage and 120 hours of emergency and fire-flow water usage (at full capacity). Each of the below grade reservoirs will contain approximately equal amounts of volume and feature a similar design consisting of multi-cell compartmentalization to provide redundancy, an adjustable weir to control inlet flow rates, and a sluice gate to control discharge flow rates. For ease of access and maintenance, inline gate valves will also be installed at selected locations along the pipe alignment. To hydraulically connect the two adjacent reservoirs, the water levels in each reservoir will be controlled using a hydraulically controlled altitude valve that will function based on differential water pressure. Furthermore, the two reservoirs will be tied in using a transition coupler which will eventually connect to a new supply main approximately 1400 meters in length. In the event of failure of the Metro Vancouver water supply, water will be released to a new booster station that will discharge to a new watermain 1000 metres in length. To ensure potability of water, disinfection will be provided using a sodium hypochlorite injection system. This system will inject a 12% sodium hypochlorite solution to the water inside the inlet chamber, through a diffuser, using two peristaltic pumps. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”