Plumbing in the 21st century

　English　　Technical-paper

Plumbing in the 21st century
Zhang Miao

Abstract: This paper looks into the technical development in plumbing in the 21stcenfury in China, regarding the technical progress and urban development, and will be helpful to the improvements in the existing plumbing system and appliances to meet the demands in future plumbing.
Keywords: 2lst century, plumbing

l. Technology, city and man in the 21st century
It is predicted that the 21st century is a grand siecle for hi-technology development. Micro electronic engineering, information engineering, biological engineering, material engineering and nano-technology will witness a great leap, which will surely lead to a remarkable development in various technology and products owing to the application of the hi-tech achievements.
The urban planning in the 21st century will be incorporated with the theory of ecological balance planning. Ecological balance of O2 and H2O and sustainable. development will become the major basis in urban planning. It is predictable that increasing green coverage will be the focus in the early half of the 21st century, and there will be major urban population resettlement and dispersal in the later half of the21st century. The super large cities nowadays will be deemed as ancient and small towns and villages will be everywhere. In the early half of the 21st century subway and light rail traffic will be developed as the main communication to gradually realize a city communication system by the combination of high-speed train traveling at over500km/h, light traffic and automobiles fueled with electric power and gas.
With well developed information network, people will not have to go around for work everyday. Multi-purpose villa will be the principal building type in the 21stcentury, with fewer public buildings. The existing multi storey buildings without lift will be demolished before 2030. The existing high-rise buildings with backward design will be removed before 2050. People will enjoy plenty sunshine, fresh air and clean water as endowed by the nature.
Considering the human evolution of 5 million years, the 21st century is only a twinkling. The development of right human brain will become a worldwide movement in the 21st century. Human beings will see great progress in civilization quality, scientific skills, laws and moralities and consciousness of environmental protection. People will have more scientific and reasonable food, cleaner water and more physical exercises. Therefore, people will be healthier than in the 20th century with longer life. However, water will still be a main composition of human body and human excrement will remain unchanged in both quality and quantity.

2. water supply in buildings
1)water consumption and quality
In a macro sense, water consumption by human beings in the 21st century will increase. H ome swimming pool, surfing bath and massage bath will become popular. Water consumption for health care will increase in large quantities. Gardening for houses and environment will need more water. It is predicted that, in cities with ample water supply, the water consumption per capita will be 500liters per day in 2050 and 800 liters per day in the end of the 21st century.
In some remote areas in lack of water resource, local governments will work out laws to limit water consumption in the principle of water resource balance. Such limitation may continue until 2080. Along with the high technology application in water treatment, more water will be reused in urban areas and the limitation will be relieved gradually.
In the 21st century, the standard of drinking water will be higher than today, up to direct drinking standard. Because of water resource protection, the level of water resources for drinking water will be upgraded. It is expected that the target can be reached by 2030 based on the existing water treatment technology with no further input. Measures against return flow pollution will be incorporated by a large amount in the design of water supply pipe work and the quality of pipe installers improved. Operation normalization will greatly prevent water from being contaminated.
2)water supply system
with information network management and miniature remote sensing and measuring components in high sensitivity and reliability, the future water supply plant to end users. The measuring units distributed in the network send Q and H data to the control center in the water supply plant for dispatching according to user consumption. A fully enclosed water supply system with no water tank, no clean water pipework and no secondary sterilization will be realized in 2050.
3)Boosting equipment
With application of super conduction and super magnetic flux materials, motors are getting smaller. Water pump in building becomes so small that in can be installed in pipe, like subwater pump in deep well, eliminating problems in cooling and noise reduction. Motor and pump are assembled in one body with the motor rotator as the pump impeller. The pumping unit is complete in Q, H and t parameter detecting elements and can transmit the data to the control center for pumping control. In this case, the future building water supply system will contain no pumping house, and there will be no problem of vibration isolation and noise reduction.
Boosting equipment will include mainly frequency controlled pumping units, and air pressure tank will no longer exist.

3. Drainage in building
1)Sanitary equipment
The varieties of sanitary equipment will increase along with the improvement of people‘s life. New types of sanitary equipment will come up with new functions. Pollution problems will be basically resolved. The focus will be put on washing appliances. Bathing equipment for health care will be more popular, such as surfing bath tub and surfing shower room. Crushing machine and dish washing machine will enter into more kitchens. The control systems in such sanitary equipment will become microelectronic and intelligent. In 2020 the toilets in public buildings will be used without any touch.
Toilet channels, urinal channels and squatting pans will vanish. Toilet bowls will be large in water surface and silent, needing no brush for cleaning. Water saving 6-liter flush toilet bowls will be the trend before 2030, ND cleaner, more comfortable toilet bowls will become popular in 2050, based on the protection and reasonable use of water resources.
Toilets will be well ventilated, so that one can neither smell nor see anything of his own discharge in the full course of using the toilet . This is the ideal sanitary toilet. The toilet bowl is both a discharge receptor and an air exhauster.
2)Drainae system
With the development in economy and environment protection, 100% of urban sewage will be treated by 2050. The buried sewage treatment such as septic tank will disappear. With the elimination of difference between urban and rural areas, small sized wastewater treatment plants will be set up in small towns. Then, the sewage discharge standard will be considerably improved. In the areas where water supply is short, 50% of water will be reused. Medium water system will last to the later half of this century. Full- automatic, high efficiency wastewater treatment devices will be developed . Biopharmaceutical engineering will provide a high efficiency organic decomposition agent which can greatly accelerate biodegradation process, Chlorine disinfectant will not be allowed to use, and be substituted by O3.
Indoor gravitational drainage system (D W V) will remain unchanged in the century, and so will the siphon trap isolated drainage system. To prevent the water sealing from loss in long term idle situation, an automatic water replenishing device will appear. One more ventilation pipe will be added to toilet. The rainwater system, whether in gravitation or pressure design, Will concentrate in rainwater collection for gardening ,with a relevant and complete system.

4 Hot water supply in buildings
The heating source of coal and gas will be replaced by electricity for hot water supply, because electricity is a clean energy resource (so are solar energy and geothermal heat). The change in heat source will bring about a gradual change from centralized hot water supply into separated local hot water supply. The end-user heaters will be so small that, in the hot water supply system, there will be no boiler, no heater, no heat storage device and no hot water cir culation device, while the requirements for water temperature will never be lover. Therefore, the function of faucets for sanitary appliances will not only be ON and OFF, but also water temperature adjustment.

5. Fire water supply
Water will remain a major means for fire extinguishing in the 21st century. The tendency is that the automatic spray extinguishing system will get more popular, while the hydrant system will get weaker. The automatic spay extinguishing system may fully take the place of hydrant system in the mid period of the century.
In a small space, the spray nozzles will automatically be shut off when fire is extinguished and turned on again when there is an after-combustion. The infrared spectral sensitivity and microcomputer will be used to tell if it is illumination or flame, so as to operate the spray nozzles, in order to get rid of fire hazard at very beginning and prevent flooding.
Fox gas extinguishing devices, alkyl halide will be replaced by gas extinguishing agents that are high in efficiency and free from poisonous matters or pollution nuisance. A gas bomb will be developed in the mid 21st century, to transplant thermal conductive (or other) molecules in the molecular bond of an inert gas, so that the inert gas flows automatically to the fire source and form a gas separation layer, resolving the problem of enclosure in gas extinguishing. Gas extinguishing system will be remarkably simplified and widely applied.

6. Pipe materials for water supply and drainage
There will be a great development in plastic pipe application in water supply (including hot water supply) system in buildings. Metal pipes (copper and stainless steel) will exist together with plastic ones. Thereafter, breakthroughs in connecting methods will lead to the development of combined metal and plastic pipes.
The 21st century is a time for water supply pipes will at last replace cast iron pipes. This will not be too long.
Buried pipes will be of plastic. Manholes will be built with plastic lining and concrete. The depth will be adjustable according to the pipe line depth.

Conclusion
Plumbing is an application technology. Its development is limited by that of basic science. People should keep concerning the development of high and new technology and make use of the achievements to their own profession. Plumbing is closely related to the living standard improvement and economic development (GDP growth) in China. Therefore, the technical development level as predicted in this paper may come sooner or later. But it is undoubted that the 21st century will witness a new developent in plumbing technology.

Author:Zhang Miao
Shanghai Architectural Design & Science Development Center
Rm. 917, Modem Architectural Design Building, 258 Shimener Road, Shanghai
Tel: 021-52524567 Fax: 021-62464336

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