Lateral Intake Cost Function

The lateral intakes are structures that are located on one side of the stream from where the water is being captured. They have a grid in the side catchment window responsible for retaining large material that can affect the operation of the adduction or the catchment structure itself. From there, the water passes to a collection chamber, from where the excess flow is frequently derived back to the water source, and the supply flow is directed to the adduction line that is located after the collection chamber. collection, in gravity systems.

In this case, it has been considered that the operation and maintenance costs of this structure are mainly associated with the labor required for the extraction of sediment in the collection chamber. Thus, this function proposes that: the higher the flow rate in the structure, the greater the sediment trapping will be and therefore the greater the frequency and the number of operators necessary for the adaptation. In accordance with these considerations and based on a value of $ 12.46 USD/hour of an operator, the construction of the cost function, it was considered that:

Where Q is the flow that enters the intake in liters/second. Part B2 related to the elasticity index is added to this equation. This is done in the same way as explained in the Cost Functions - General wiki.

With this, the function obtained is the following: