Piping wizard

Piping wizard

CAD Import, Piping wizard

The Piping wizard is a tool dedicated to piping cases. It leads you through the steps needed before performing the sketch generation: split, primitive associations and connections. It contains automatic algorithms to speed-up all these steps.

The Piping wizard is available from the 1D modeling menu and from the 1D modeling toolbar when 1D modeling is active.

Note

You can import PCF (Piping Component File) files directly into Simcenter Amesim. If you have access to a tool that generates PCF files, you may wish to use this option instead of the Piping Wizard. See PCF for details.

Figure 127: 1D modeling menu

Figure 128: 1D modeling toolbar

Splitting bodies

When you open the Piping wizard, the first step allows you to do the split of your parts. You can select a list of target bodies.

Figure 129: Select bodies to cut

When you click Detect cutting planes Detecting cutting planes , some cutting planes are added automatically on all the Target bodies. The Automatic plane detection method uses the edges located on the pipe to create candidate cutting planes, and afterward, these candidates are kept or not, depending on the Detection tolerances selected.

Figure 130: Cutting planes highlighted

The planes detected are displayed at the bottom of the dialog box in the Planes list.

You can adjust the algorithm tolerances with the sliders located under Detection tolerances:

Figure 131: Adjusting tolerances

CAD Import, Adjusting tolerances As you move the sliders, the candidate cutting planes are kept or discarded, and the list of planes are updated accordingly.

Here is a description of the tolerances:

• Bend radius ratio: Bend radius ratio This tolerance is used to determine how much the location a bend component’s center point of curvature must change before a cutting plane is added. A small tolerance (when the slider is moved towards the left-hand or 'fine' side) may result in more bends being defined if there is a gradual variation in the location of the center point of curvature along the center line.

• Straight pipe angle: Straight pipe angle This tolerance is used to determine how much a bend component’s radius of curvature must change before a cutting plane is added. A large tolerance (when the slider is moved towards the right-hand or 'coarse' side) may result in fewer straight pipes being defined if there is small variation in the angle of the bends between pipes.

Planes

CAD Import, Adjusting planes In the bottom list, you can select, add, remove and modify cutting planes.

Note

For more information on this topic, you can check the Split body section.

Split

Once you have done the needed adjustments, click the Split button to split it into smaller bodies. The body is split and the newly-created bodies are added to the Target bodies and listed in the Object tree.

Figure 132: Object tree

Note

You can click the button to delete a target body from the list.

When you click Next, the Associations tab opens.

Create associations

On the Associations tab you can create associations for each object either automatically or manually:

• Automatic association: Click Detect association to open the dialog of the same name. This dialog proposes a detection algorithm for some specific primitives (mainly piping primitives). You can select the domain you want to work with and then the type of primitives you want to identify. Note that you can keep all types of primitives selected by default without any trouble. Figure 133: Detect association dialog box

Note In the Fluid domain for example, there are three kinds of pipes that can be detected: Pipe, Pipe with rotation motion and Pipe with thermal port. You need to select which type of pipe you want to detect: only a single type of pipe can be selected.

Once you have selected the domain and type(s), click Detect to create the associations. Figure 134: Associations created automatically

Note The Primitive automatic detection algorithm is also based on the tolerances that are used for the cutting plane detection. For example, a sequence of pipe and bend sections can be detected as a Pipe primitive. In this case, the full center line is used to calculate the total length of the pipe.

• Manual association: In case some bodies are not associated automatically, you can use the manual association feature under the group Associations. To do so, you can:

select all the bodies you want to associate with the same type,

select the domain and the type in the combo boxes of the Associations group,

click the Associate button.

You can also use the Click to associate mode. Once activated, select the domain and the type you want to use and then, each time you will select a body, it will be associated with the chosen Domain and Type.

Once you have completed your associations, you can perform the following actions on those associations:

• Edit association: If an association is displayed in red in the associations list, it means that an error has been detected. You can edit the association using the pen button to open a Primitive association window in which you can modify it. See Split body for more information.

• Click the button to remove the primitive association.

• Click the trashcan icon to remove the body from the list. Note If a primitive is associated with the body you are removing from the Association Builder, you will be prompted to choose whether to keep or remove that association.

When this step is complete, click Next.

Creating connections

CAD Import, Creating connections The final step is to create connections for the target bodies. You can do this individually or create connections automatically:

Icon	Action
	Create connections automatically. This option creates connections for all target bodies automatically based on port proximities.
	Create an individual connection. This option opens a dialog box in which you can define your connection manually by selecting target bodies from the Object tree.
	Delete all connections. This option deletes all connections currently established.
	Highlight unconnected ports. This option highlights any ports that lack connections on the sketch.
	Define the Connection Distance. This option allows you to use a tolerance on the distance between two ports for the automatic detection of a connection.

You can edit individual connections by clicking the pen icon, or delete them by clicking the button.

Figure 135: Editing connections

Once you have completed the connections, click Finish to close the wizard.