Plugin prototyping for the EPANET software

Hydraulic simulation tools, such as EPANET, are the primary tools for evaluating water distribution systems performance. This work presents a first step towards demonstrating a simple and straightforward implementation of plugins in the new EPANET GUI to facilitate plugins development by the water systems modeling community. The paper shows the code structure and the basic functionalities of a custom plugin demonstrated using three specific examples: Count, FireFlow, and Elevations plugins. A prototype repository, where developers and users can share and download EPANET plugins is presented and discussed. EPANET plugins framework can support knowledge transfer by increasing the visibility and usability of developed analytical tools and software, thus providing benefits for researchers and practitioners. The proposed plugins are freely available through GitHub.