%0 Journal Article %A Cunha, Maria %A Marques, João %D 2017 %T CCWI2017: F134 'An Improved Simulated Annealing Algorithm for Solving Complex Water Distribution Networks' %U https://orda.shef.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/CCWI2017_F134_An_Improved_Simulated_Annealing_Algorithm_for_Solving_Complex_Water_Distribution_Networks_/5364136 %R 10.15131/shef.data.5364136.v1 %2 https://orda.shef.ac.uk/ndownloader/files/9218689 %K CCWI2017 %K water distribution networks %K simulated annealing %K cross-entropy %K Civil Engineering not elsewhere classified %X Optimising the design of water distribution networks (WDNs) is a well-known problem that has been studied by numerous researchers. This work proposes a heuristic based on simulated annealing and improved by using concepts from the cross-entropy method. The proposed optimization approach is presented and used in two case studies of different complexity. The results show not only a fall in the computational effort of the new approach relative to simulated annealing but also include a comparison with other heuristic results from the literature, used to solve the same problems. %I The University of Sheffield