Dr Roger Powell

I graduated from SheffieldUniversity in 1981 with a degree in Control Engineering and during a three year spell in the petro-chemical industry became interested in the control of large-scale systems such as oil, gas and water distribution networks. I joined the University of Durham in 1984 as a Senior Research Fellow and shortly thereafter, became a lecturer.

I obtained my PhD (part-time) from Durham in 1991 for work on monitoring and control of water distribution networks (essentially, using non-linear state estimation techniques for burst detection and proposing an integrated design using relational databases).

I moved to Brunel in 1990 and built up a research team and thanks to the members of that team and the support from Thames Water, South West Water (amongst others), I had a run of grants and contracts totalling about £3/4 million. I set up the Water Operational Research Centre soon after becoming a senior lecturer, which had a lifetime of nearly a decade but which, at the end of that time, was disbanded so that I could pursue other research interests.

My current research interests are still focussed on large-scale systems and I am an active member of the GridCC project.

Research Interests

Grid computing, state estimation, large-scale systems and XML technologies.

Publications

Journal Papers

(2004) McCormick, G. and Powell, RS., Derivation of near-optimal pump schedules for water distribution by simulated annealing, Journal of the Operational Research Society 55 (7) : 728- 736 Download publication

(2003) McCormick, G. and Powell, RS., Optimal pump scheduling in water supply systems with maximum demand charges, Journal of Water Resources Planning and Managment 129 (5) : 372- 379

(2002) Nagar, AK. and Powell, RS., LFT/SDP approach to the uncertainty analysis for state estimation of water distribution systems, IEE Proceedings: Control Theory and Applications 149 (2) : 137- 142 Download publication

(2001) Andersen, JH., Powell, RS. and Marsh, JF., Constrained state estimation with applications in water distribution network monitoring, International Journal of Systems Science 32 (6) : 807- 816

(2000) Maier, SH., Powell, RS. and Woodward, CA., Calibration and comparison of chlorine decay models for a test water distribution system, Water Research 34 (8) : 2301- 2309 Download publication

(1999) Andersen, JH. and Powell, RS., Simulation of water networks containing controlling elements, Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 125 (3) : 162- 169

(1994) Yu, G. and Powell, RS., Optimal design of meter placement in water distribution systems, International Journal of Systems Science 25 (12) : 2155- 2166

(1994) Yu, G., Powell, RS. and Sterling, MJH., Optimized pump scheduling in water distribution systems, Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications 83 (3) : 463- 488 Download publication

(1993) Xu, CC. and Powell, RS., Leakage reduction and security enhancement for water distribution networks by on-line pressure control, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 10 (1) : 55- 75

(1991) Smith, MM., Powell, RS., Irving, MR. and Sterling, MJH., Robust algorithm for state estimation in electrical networks, IEE Proceedings C: Generation, Transmission and Distribution 138 (4) : 283- 288

(1991) Hartley, JA. and Powell, RS., The development of a combined water demandprediction system, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 8 (4) : 231- 236

(1991) Xu, C. and Powell, RS., Water supply system reliability: concepts and measures, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 8 (4) : 191- 195

Conference Papers

(2003) McCormick, G. and Powell, RS., A progressive mixed integer-programming method for pump scheduling, International Conference on Advances in Water Supply Management

(2003) McCormick, G. and Powell, RS., Automatic derivation of linearised hydraulic models from Epanet, International Conference on Advances in Water Supply Management

(2003) McCormick, G. and Powell, RS., Security of supply for service reservoirs, International Conference on Advances in Water Supply Management

(1999) Maier, SH., Woodward, CA., Delanoue, A., Holt, DM., McMath, SM. and Powell, RS., Relationships between total chlorine, particle counts and biofilm detachment in a drinking water distribution system, International Conference on Biofilms in Aquatic Systems

Book Chapters

(1988) Powell, RS., Irving, MR., Sterling, MJH. and Usman, A., A comparison of three real-time state estimation methods for on-line monitoring of water distribution systems. In: Computer Applications in Water Supply: Volume 1 Systems Analysis and Simulation. Taunton, UK : Research Studies Press Ltd 333- 348