Question

In two or three sentences for each system, explain how redundancy is achieved in:

a. power transmission systems

b. highway systems

c. water treatment and distribution systems

d. source water supply

Answer 1

a) Redundancy in power transmission systems

In electrical power systems, the term redundancy indicates the use of duplicate devices. However, in process control systems, the redundancy is defined as a system that consists of several different devices with the same function and a decision system that verifies the outcome. The process control systems are integral part of the electrical power system

b) Redundancy in highway systems

Redundancy in highway system depends on two factors

1) Route diversity : Number of available alternate routes

2) Network spare capacity: Spare capacity of a network

c) Redundancy in water treatment and distribution systems

Water Distribution Systems (WDS) are traditionally built with topological and energy redundancy to improve network reliability against mechanical and hydraulic failure. This aim is achieved by designing them with many interconnected closed loops and with pipe diameters that are larger than the ones strictly necessary to fulfill the design pressure at the network nodes

d) Redundancy in source water supply

Number of alternative paths between the source and demand nodes that can be used to satisfy the supply requirements during the failure of the main paths. It can be seen that providing redundancy increase the reliability of water distribution system