4. Pipe networks

In many applications (water supply, district heating, central heating, air conditioning distribution, lubricating oil distribution network on a vehicle, etc.) the fluid (generally incompressible or considered as such) is distributed by a set of pipes called a network. This network can be :

• branched (figure 18 ) to enable distribution to different points (or "users u _i ") from a "source" point S, without the points being connected to each other in any way other than by the single series of pipes that links them to the source. In this case, there is only one possible route from the source to any one of the users;

• mesh (figure 19...