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Document Type: Technote Product(s): Hevacomp Software Version(s): V8i Original Author: Bentley Technical Support Group
Document Type: Technote
Product(s): Hevacomp Software
Version(s): V8i
Original Author: Bentley Technical Support Group
Hevacomp were acquired by Bentley Systems in January 2008. As part of this, all resources such as Service packs are now available from the Bentley Systems website. In May 2009, the UK Government and BRE announced that EPC lodgements would only be considered if they were generated using the very latest version of the SBEM engine. This Service Pack contains the latest accredited version of PART L/SBEM for V8i Hevacomp Software.
Floor change connectors in NETSYS can be quite difficult to get the hang of at first, but with a little practice they can be overcome quite easily. First of all, you should understand that the only use for floor change connectors (FCC’s) is to allow a connection point between duct work or pipe work. They do not form part of the duct or pipe network in any other way. To allow the FCC to function correctly, ideally it should be placed on the connecting ceiling/floor of your project, with riser pipes/ducts leading up to the connector. In some instances, the software is able to draw these riser pipes/ducts (we shall refer from here on in to pipe sections, though this document caters for both) if the FCC has been placed correctly, however, this is not always possible. This document will take you through the process of manually adding risers before placing your floor change connector to ensure that your project contains the correct pipe work for your sizing run .
To display this technique, I will be using a two storey project with pipe work at low level on the ground floor, and at high level on the first floor.
As you can see from the image we have drawn our layout on both floors already. Note that it is often a good idea to layout your floors individually. If you do this you can check your layout on a floor by floor basis using temporary system markers to see if your project functions correctly. The FCC we will be adding will connect the far right of each section together at the ceiling/floor intersection. But first, we should draw in the riser from the ground floor up to the ceiling level.
Drawing the first riser section
From the Pipes menu, select the defaults option and if not already selected, set the current pipe height to “Low Level”, and set the SPECIAL pipe height to 3m
Now select the Draw pipe option from the Pipes menu and click on the pipe end marked X (see the diagram above) to start drawing our pipe section. If you move your mouse around you will see that the draw mode is in elastic mode. One end stays tied to the X point. Now we should RIGHT click back on the same point. This will bring up a context menu, as you can see here:
From this menu we should select the Pipe height option, and from the list provided, select the SPECIAL height, and click OK. When we return to the drawing screen, we will still be in elastic mode, so we should now LEFT click on the X point to set our pipe. Once clicked, press the enter key to stop the drawing mode.
This should have generated our riser pipe from low level up to 3m. A good idea at this point would be to click on the Zoom menu and select the Isometric view option. If you rotate your view around you should see your project looking something like this:
Now we should go on to add our floor change connector. Doing so will add a point to each floor that the pipe work can connect to. Remember that the FCC has no other use than to connect pipe work from floor to floor.
Adding the floor change connector
To add our floor change connector, first of all go into the Pipes menu, and select Defaults again. You should notice that the default Pipe height is now set at Special. That is fine for now. Exit out of the Default screen and select the Draw pipe option.
Again, we will need to start drawing at our X point, so click onto that point, and again, RIGHT click the point immediately after to bring up our context menu. This time, select Floor change connector from the menu.
Once you do so, a dialog like this will appear.
As you can see from this screen grab, the ground floor information is already filled in. This will place the part of the connector on this floor at 3m which will hug the ceiling nicely. Now we have to fill in the other part of this dialog. In this instance we are intending to hug the floor level of the floor above. The floor number for the connection should be set to 1 and the height above the floor level can be left at 0. This will place the second half of the connector right on the floor level of the first floor, which is exactly where we want it.
Note that the height of connectors is always above the reference floor level - that is to say above the datum of the referenced floor. If, for example our lower floor was at -4m, and the height of the floor was 3m floor to ceiling, the connector should still be placed at 3m to ensure it hugged the ceiling of that floor.
Now when you press OK on this dialog, you will go back to the drawing screen. You should notice that you have broken out of draw mode and that a black dot has appeared at the X point on our drawing. This indicates that a floor change connector has been placed at that point. There will also be floor a change connector placed at the same X and Y co-ordinates on the floor above.
The final thing to do now is to draw the riser in for the first floor connecting our pipe section to the floor change connector. Using the Floor menu and Change floor function, change to the first floor.
If you look at your drawing on screen, it appears that the floor change connector is part of your system, but it isn’t yet. If you size your project at this time you will get a “No flow in system” error. We still need to draw our final riser section in place. To do this, first of all visit the Pipes menu and select the Defaults option. On the defaults screen, change the SPECIAL height to 0m (where our FCC is placed on this floor) and select the current pipe height as High level (the pipe work height on this floor). Click OK to close the dialog. From the Pipes menu, select the Draw pipe option and left click on the point Y (marked on the drawing above) to start our riser section. As before you should note you are in elastic mode. Now right click back on point Y to bring up the context menu. As before, we should select the Pipe Height option. From the available heights, select the SPECIAL height (which should be set at 0m) and click on OK. This will bring us back to the drawing screen. To fix our pipe into position, left click on point Y. The program should now exit the Draw pipe mode and your final riser section should be in position.
If you were to view the Isometric view of both floors, you would see something similar to this:
You should now be able to run pipe sizing on your project and it will consider both floors.
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