Hello,
Is there any way in WaterGEMS / WaterCAD through which we can find the total number of bends in our hydraulic model?
Thank You.
Hello Videet,
In WaterGEMS/WaterCAD you can find the network elements such as junctions, pipes, valves by using the Network Navigator tool found in the View Tab. But it is not possible to view all the bends in your network.
This is because the capability to model bends in a pipeline in WaterGEMS/WaterCAD is only a modeling capability and not a hydraulic capability. This means that adding bends in your pipeline is for a better visualization of your network schematic only. Introducing bends won't automatically assign the minor losses associated with them. You will have to enter the minor losses separately.
Here is a relevant article in this regard.
Are minor losses from pipe bends automatically considered?
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Yashodhan Joshi
Bentley Technical Support
Thank You for the reply.
Well, I am aware with the minor losses concept, just wanted to assure that is there any technique to know that.
For minor losses consideration, we should be aware with the total no. of bends for each pipe and enter it accordingly for all the pipes.. But again, it becomes a time consuming task.
You can lookup the number of bends in a "single pipe" under the Geometry Tab in the Pipe Properties.
It will look something like this;
As in the example above, the Geometry is showing a collection of 13 items. These are the XY coordinates of your pipe. Subtract "2" from this number (start and end coordinates allocated to junctions). You will get the required number of bends (E.g. 13-2=11). You can use this for calculation of minor losses.
This is just a simple technique you can use to save some time rather than counting the bends manually.
Dear Yashodhan,
Still it is a laborous task, as WaterGEMS is not providing the <Geometry> tab in the Pipe flex table where we can see it in a tabulated or less time consuming editing.
Videet, what type of system are you working with? In most typical water and sewer applications, the head loss caused by bends is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than those due to losses in the straight runs of pipes. Most engineers can safely ignore these losses or treat them by marginally increasing pipe roughness during calibration.
Can you describe the network you are modeling?
Adding to what Yashodhan and Tom writes here, I would like to mention that it is a common design practice in South Asia (India) and some of the South East Asian countries to consider about 10% of Frictional Headloss (Major Headloss) as the minor headloss in the pipe. Our users do achieve this by using "Length (User Defined)" and pasting Length (Scaled) to Length (User Defined) Column and then multiplying the column globally by 1.1 (10% of major headloss as additional minor loss).
The Headloss (Calculated) is then inclusive of Minor Headlosses for the Pipe over its Scaled Length.
Please note that in such a case, while creating Pipe Inventory Table for the network, you must use Length (Scaled).
And of course, you can tweak the 'C- Factor' a bit during calibration studies.
Dear Tom,
The reason for this is strictly what is mentioned by Tanay.
There are different ways for calculating it but the user is asking for the one mentioned by me.