Estimation of reservoir capacity using optimization technique

One of the most important physical characteristic of reservoirs are their area capacity curves. Area capacity curves are required for determination of water surface area, reservoir capacity, outlet sill level, reservoir sediment distribution. Several semi-empirical and empirical equations have been proposed to predict the capacity curves precisely. These semi-empirical and empirical approaches generally employ graphical method to obtain the reservoir coefficients. Use of Generalized Reduced Gradient (GRG) technique, a powerful optimization tool, has been proposed in this paper to estimate the reservoir coefficients precisely. A comparative analysis of trial-error based graphical method and optimization approach shows that GRG technique is more reliable tool for estimation of reservoir coefficients accurately. The reservoir capacities calculated from optimization approach were found to be more accurate than the graphical method.