DeVILS Project Proposal:

A Safer Waterline
Frederick Guthrie, FSE 100
Problem Background
Stakeholders (Customers)

● Homeowners

● Business Owners

● Insurance Companies

● Home Improvement Contractors

Background Research

● A trillion dollars in US water main breaks are

expected in the next 25 years.
● Using historical data on which mains have
failed, descriptors of pipes, and other data
sources, we evaluated several models'
abilities to predict breaks three years into
the future.
Background Research

● Although soft valves have been designed in various

forms, they have not achieved the pressure or flow
rate conditions as required by many existing
hydraulic actuators.
● Electrically driven actuators “These soft valves have a
fast response time and are able to control fluidic
pressure and flow rates that match the needs of
hydraulic actuators with mesoscale channels. ”
POV Statement

● Homeowners / Businesses

● Current technologies are reactive, and fixes cause huge disruption to home

life

● Innovative technology to aid against water damages

Problem Statement
The Problem

● Customers are suffering from water damage uses related to broken lines

● Current approaches are mostly reactive to the issue

● Fixes are expensive and evasive

● Insurance premiums for water damage is an additional cost that a lot of

individuals cannot afford

Requirements and Criteria
Requirements

● The design shall be able to work as an add on to already constructed homes with

minimal invasion

● The design shall be a proactive solution to water damage

● The design shall not have a surface area footprint bigger than 54 ft²

● The design shall be built to operate for 3 years before replacement necessary

● The design shall be operable in all weather conditions

Criteria

● Cost

● Size

● Power Requirements

● Reliability

● Aesthetics

● Weight
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and
Decision Matrix
AHP
Decision Matrix
Proposed Design
Proposed Design
● Clamp style
● Copper
● Easy to replace
● Small
● Safety Parameters
● Transducer communicates
to phone app or email
Proposed Design

● Transucer reads pressure and signals software

● Software signals valve
● Data stored on drive
● Real time data points
How this Design Solves the Problem

● This technology provides a proactive solution to solving unwanted water damage in

homes and businesses.

● The design can be applied to any home, it is very small and light while the components

boast a long operational life.

● Creates a safety net that each customer can customize to their life and gives real time

data via phone app or email.

Conclusion
Summary

● Meets Criteria
● Meets Requirements
● Can be added to any home
● Cloud upload will require internet connection
Lessons Learned

● Aesthetics can play a huge role in products

● Combining emerging technologies can provide countless solutions

● We are very reactive in our nature

● Sometimes repurposing current technologies can be the most efficient way

References
● AU - Siyi Xu AU - Yufeng Chen AU - Nak-seung P. Hyun AU - Kaitlyn P. Becker AU - Robert J. Wood TI - A dynamic electrically driven soft valve for control of soft
hydraulic actuatorsPT - Journal ArticleDP - 2021TA - Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesPG - e2103198118VI - 118IP - 34AID - 10.1073/pnas.2103198118 [doi] PMID - 34417289
4099 - https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.21031981184100 - https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2103198118SO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2021-08-24
118(34): e2103198118AB - Regulation systems for fluid-driven soft robots predominantly consist of inflexible and bulky components. These rigid structures considerably limit the adaptability and
mobility of these robots. Soft valves in various forms for fluidic actuators have been developed, primarily fluidically or electrically driven. However, fluidic soft valves require external pressure sources
that limit robot locomotion. State-of-the-art electrostatic valves are unable to modulate pressure beyond 3.5 kPa with a sufficient flow rate (>6 mL⋅min−1). In this work, we present an electrically
powered soft valve for hydraulic actuators with mesoscale channels based on a different class of ultrahigh-power density dynamic dielectric elastomer actuators. The dynamic dielectric elastomer
actuators (DEAs) are actuated at 500 Hz or above. These DEAs generate 300% higher blocked force compared with the dynamic DEAs in previous works and their loaded power density reaches 290
W⋅kg−1 at operating conditions. The soft valves are developed with compact (7 mm tall) and lightweight (0.35 g) dynamic DEAs, and they allow effective control of up to 51 kPa of pressure and a 40
mL⋅min−1 flow rate with a response time less than 0.1 s. The valves can also tune flow rates based on their driving voltages. Using the DEA soft valves, we demonstrate control of hydraulic actuators
of different volumes and achieve independent control of multiple actuators powered by a single pressure source. This compact and lightweight DEA valve is capable of unprecedented electrical control
of hydraulic actuators, showing the potential for future onboard motion control of soft fluid-driven robots.
● Maury D. Gaston, undefined, Pipelines 2019, 10.1061/9780784482506.018, (170-179), (2019).Crossref
● @inproceedings{10.1145/3219819.3219835,author = {Kumar, Avishek and Rizvi, Syed Ali Asad and Brooks, Benjamin and Vanderveld, R. Ali and Wilson, Kevin H. and Kenney, Chad and Edelstein,
Sam and Finch, Adria and Maxwell, Andrew and Zuckerbraun, Joe and Ghani, Rayid},title = {Using Machine Learning to Assess the Risk of and Prevent Water Main Breaks},year = {2018},isbn =
{9781450355520},publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},address = {New York, NY, USA},url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3219819.3219835},doi = {10.1145/3219819.3219835},abstract =
{Water infrastructure in the United States is beginning to show its age, particularly through water main breaks. Main breaks cause major disruptions in everyday life for residents and businesses. Water
main failures in Syracuse, N.Y. (as in most cities) are handled reactively rather than proactively. A barrier to proactive maintenance with limited resources is the city's inability to properly prioritize the
allocation of its resources. We built a Machine Learning system to assess the risk of a water mains breaking. Using historical data on which mains have failed, descriptors of pipes, and other data
sources, we evaluated several models' abilities to predict breaks three years into the future. Our results show that our system using gradient boosted decision trees performed best out of several
algorithms and expert heuristics, achieving precision at 1% (P@1) of 0.62. Our model outperforms a random baseline (P@1 of 0.08) and expert heuristics such as water main age (P@1 of 0.10) and
history of past main breaks (P@1 of 0.48). The model is currently deployed in the City of Syracuse. We are conducting a pilot by calculating the risk of failure for each city block over the period 2016-
2018 using data up to the end of 2015 and, as of the end of 2017, there have been 42 breaks on our riskiest 52 mains. This has been a successful initiative for the city of Syracuse in improving its
infrastructure and we believe this approach can be applied to other cities.},booktitle = {Proceedings of the 24th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining},pages =
{472–480},numpages = {9},keywords = {social good, civic teach, city planning},location = {London, United Kingdom},series = {KDD '18}}