Determination of maximum flow rate in a building water supply system by means of acoustic observation

The pipe sizing criteria in use today was developed by Roy B. Hunter and published in the BMS65 report in December of 1940 (Hunter, 1940). Hunter developed the fixture unit as a method to establish the load-producing effect of plumbing fixtures. Hunter developed his methodology with the probability of fixture use. No actual count of fixture use was involved.; Recent developments in computer technology have made it possible to use a voice-recognition program in a PC to distinguish a particular plumbing fixture in normal use in a building. A sensor to attach to the water supply pipes has been developed to retrieve the noises made by the actuation of the plumbing fixtures. The computer is trained to recognize the retrieved noise from the pipes and record the time and location of the fixture event.; The development of the technology has allowed the researchers to determine the amount of water used by an individual fixture in place without dismantling or disruption of the installation. Digital recording of the sound track provides a log that allows for the determination of simultaneous events. It is with the simultaneous events that the maximum momentary demand can be calculated.