Using the "Auto Update Isolation Valve Data" option in Criticality and the Pressure Zone Manager

  Applies To 
  Product(s): WaterCAD, WaterGEMS
  Version(s): 08.11.01.32 +
  Area:  Output and Reporting
  Original Author: Jesse Dringoli, Bentley Technical Support Group

Problem

What does the "Auto Update Isolation Valve Data" option do, in the Options tab of the Pressure Zone Manager?


Solution

This option refers to the automatic updating of the distance and offset fields for isolation valves.

These are the distance along the pipe, and the offset away from the pipe, respectively. The Pressure Zone Manager and Segmentation/Criticality tools use these values when highlighting the pressure zones (segments). If there is an isolation valve along the pipe, one color will be used to highlight that pipe down to the isolation valve and another from the isolation valve to the other end of the pipe. We know how far the isolation valve is along the pipe by the distance field.

On rare occasions (such as a ModelBuilder update of the X/Y coordinates or when manually moving elements), these values can become 'stale'. So, you may run into a situation where the pipe highlight will be split at the (visually) wrong place, because it's using that 'stale' value. This also has implications on the total pipe length and fluid volume that the tools compute for each pressure zone or segment.

The auto update option is used to go over all the isolation valves and update their distance and offset fields. This will assure that there are no stale values being used. The reason why this is optional is because in very large models, there can be a performance implication with always updating those values on calculation. If you know that you haven't changed anything with your isolation valves, then there is no need to update if it's been taking a noticeable amount of time to do it.

See Also

Using the Pressure Zone Manager

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